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SEX  IN  PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 


RATIONAL  SEX  SERIES 


SANE  SEX  LIFE  AND  SANE  SEX  LIVING, 

by  H.  W.  Long,  M.D. 
BI-SEXUAL  LOVE,  by  Dr.  William  Stekel 
SEX  AND  DREAMS,   by  Dr.  William  Stekel 
THE    HOMO-SEXUAL    NEUROSIS,    by    Dr. 

William  Stekel 
SEX  AND  THE  SENSES,  by  James  S.    Van 

Teslaar,  M.D. 

THE  LAWS  OF  SEX,  by  Edith  H.  Hooker 
MOTHERHOOD,  by  H.  W.  Long,  M.D. 
CHILDREN  BY  CHANCE  OR  BY  CHOICE,  by 

William  Hawley  Smith 
SEX    IN    PSYCHO-ANALYSIS,    by    S.     Fe- 

renczi,  M.D. 
HISTORY  AND  PRACTICE  OF  PSYCHANALY- 

sis,  by  Paul  Bjerre,  M.D, 
TEMPERAMENT     AND     SEX,      by     Walter 

Heaton 
SEX  AND  SOCIETY,  by  W.  I.  Thomas 


RICHARD    G.    BADGER,     PUBLISHER,    BOSTON 


SEX     IN 
PSYCHO  ANALYSIS 

CONTRIBUTIONS  TO   PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 


S.    FERENCZI 

[BUDAPEST] 

Medical  Adviser  to 

The  Hungarian  Law  Courts 

Authorized  Translation  by 
ERNEST  JONES  M.D. 


BOSTON 

RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 
LONDON:  STANLEY  PHILLIPS 


COPYRIGHT,  1916.  BT  RICHARD  G.  BADGER 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 

DR.  FERENCZI  is  known  as  one  of  the  leading 
exponents  of  psycho-analysis,  and  apart,  of 
course,  from  Professor  Freud,  has  perhaps  made 
more  original  contributions  than  anyone  else  to  that 
subject.  Before  taking  up  the  study  of  psycho- 
analysis he  had  for  many  years  been  engaged  on 
neurological,  psychiatrical  and  medico-legal  work, 
and  had  made  a  number  of  contributions  particularly 
on  neurological  and  psychotherapeutic  subjects. 
His  extensive  personal  experience  with  the  methods 
of  hypnotism  and  suggestion  gave  him  a  specially 
favourable  opportunity  to  compare  and  contrast  the 
results  thus  obtained  with  those  he  was  able  later 
to  obtain  by  the  use  of  the  psycho-analytic  method. 
The  greater  part  of  his  work  has  been  published  only 
in  Hungarian;  from  that  which  has  appeared  in 
German  I  have  selected  for  translation,  with  Dr. 
Ferenczi's  approval,  some  fifteen  papers,  which  are 
here  reproduced  in  the  order  of  their  original  appear- 
ance. Of  these  only  two,  forming  Chapters  I  and 
III,  were  written  from  the  point  of  view  of  popular 
exposition ;  the  others  are  all  of  a  more  technical  and 
advanced  nature,  being  addressed  to  an  audience 

5 


6  Translator's  Preface 

already  familiar  with  psycho-analytical  principles. 
While  this  fact  increases  their  value  for  serious  stu- 
dents of  the  subject,  there  being  little  enough  of 
such  literature  in  English,  it  exposes  many  of  the 
conclusions  to  ready  misconception  unless  it  be  con- 
stantly borne  in  mind  that  a  considerable  knowledge 
of  previous  work  is  assumed  throughout  by  the  au- 
thor. To  those  readers  approaching  the  subject  for 
the  first  time  the  following  books  are  recommended 
as  a  preliminary  study:  Hitschmann,  "Freud's 
Theory  of  the  Neuroses,"  Brill,  "Psychanalysis," 
and  the  translator's  "Papers  on  Psycho-Analysis. " 
In  the  translation  I  have  tried  to  render  the  au- 
thor's thought  and  language  as  closely  and  accu- 
rately as  possible,  judging  this  to  be  the  chief  desid- 
eratum in  dealing  with  a  scientific  work,  even  at  the 
cost  of  retaining  some  foreignness  of  style. 

I  am  indebted  to  Miss  Barbara  Low  for  read- 
ing through  both  the  manuscript  and  the  proofs. 

Portland  Court. 
London,  W. 


CONTENTS 

CHAI'TER  PAQL 

I.    THE  ANALYTIC  INTERPRETATION  AND  TREATMENT  OF 

PSYCHOSEXUAL   IMPOTENCE 11 

II.    INTBOJECTION  AND  TRANSFERENCE 35 

I.    INTROJECTION  IN  THE  NEUROSES  ....  35 
II.    THE  PART   PLAYED    BY    TRANSFERENCE   IN 

HYPNOTISM  AND  SUGGESTION     ....  58 

III.  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  ANALYSIS  OF  DREAMS     ...  94 

IV.  ON  OBSCENE  WORDS 132 

V.    ON  THE  PART  PLAYED  BY  HOMOSEXUALITY  IN  THE 

PATHOGENESIS  OF  PARANOIA   .           154 

VI.    ON  ONANISM 187 

VII.    TRANSITORY    SYMPTOM-CONSTRUCTIONS  DURING  THE 

ANALYSIS 193 

VIII.    STAGES   IN   THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   SENSE   OF 

REALITY .     .  213 

IX.    A  LITTLE  CHANTICLEER 240 

X.    SYMBOLISM 263 

I.    THE    SYMBOLIC    REPRESENTATION    OF    THE 
PLEASURE  AND  THE  REALITY  PRINCIPLES  IN 

THE  CEoiPUS  MYTH 253 

II.    ON  EYE  SYMBOLISM 270 

III.    THE  ONTOGENESIS  OF  SYMBOLS      ....  276 
XI.    SOME   CLINICAL   OBSERVATIONS   ON   PARANOIA   AND 

PARAPHRENIA 282 

XII.    THE  NOSOLOGY  OF  MALE  HOMOSEXUALITY  (HOMO- 
EROTISM)  296 

XIII.    THE  ONTOGENESIS  OF  THE  INTEREST  IN  MONEY     .     .  319 

INDEX  333 


S  E  X    I  N 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    ANALYTIC    INTERPRETATION    AND    TREATMENT    OF 
PSYCHOSEXUAL   IMPOTENCE1 

ONE  of  the  few  objective  arguments  brought 
against  the  method  of  treatment  of  the  psycho- 
neuroses  inaugurated  by  Freud  is  the  criticism  that 
it  effects  only  a  symptomatic  cure.  It  is  said  to 
cause  the  pathological  manifestations  of  hysteria 
to  disappear,  but  not  the  hysterical  disposition  it- 
self. In  regard  to  this  Freud  quite  rightly  directs 
our  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  same  critics  shew 
much  more  indulgence  towards  other  anti-hysterical 
procedures,  which  cannot  even  effect  a  final  cure  of 
one  symptom.  We  may  also  bring  forward  against 
the  argument  just  mentioned  the  fact  that  the  an- 
alysis, penetrating  into  the  depths  of  mental  life  (a 
process  which  Freud  tellingly  compares  with  the  ex- 
cavating work  of  the  archaeologist),  not  only  effects 

1  Published  in  the  Psychiatrisch-Neurologische  Wochenschrift, 
1908,  Jahrg.  X. 

11 


18  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

a  cure  of  the  symptoms,  but  also  results  in  such 
fundamental  change  in  the  patient's  character  that 
we  no  longer  have  any  right  to  call  him  a  sick  man.2 
We  are  the  less  justified  in  doing  so,  in  that  after 
the  analysis  is  finished  he  is  well  armed  also  against 
new  psychical  conflicts  and  shocks,  pretty  much  as 
well  as  the  non-analysed  "healthy  persons,"  who — as 
we  now  know  with  certainty — carry  about  with  them 
throughout  life  a  multitude  of  repressed  ideational 
complexes  that  are  at  all  times  ready  to  increase 
and  exaggerate  with  their  affect-value  the  patho- 
genic action  of  psychical  traumata. 

Besides  this,  the  burden  of  proof  completely  dis- 
appears in  the  cases  where  our  medical  task  is  com- 
prised in  the  curing  of  a  single  symptom.  Among 
these  tasks  the  treatment  of  psychical  impotence  has 
constantly  been  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  difficult. 
So  many  of  my  patients  came  with  this  complaint, 
and  so  great  have  I  found  the  mental  misery  due  to 
this  symptom,  that  I  have  been  untiring  in  the  ap- 
plication of  the  most  diverse  medicinal3  and  sugges- 
tive4 methods  of  treatment.  Now  and  then  I  have 
had  success  with  both  of  these,  but  neither  of  them 
proved  to  be  reliable.  I  count  myself  all  the  more 
fortunate  to  be  able  now  to  report  much  more  suc- 

*Jung  and  Muthmann  in  their  works  come  to  the  same  con- 
clusion. 

*  Ferenczl.  Arzneimittelschatz  des  Neurologen.  Gy6gyaszat, 
1906. 

4  Ferenczi.  Ueber  den  Heilwert  der  Hypnose.  Gyogyaszat, 
1904. 


Psycho  sexual  Impotence  13 

cessful  results,  for  which  I  have  to  thank  Freud's 
psycho-analytic  method  of  treatment.5 

I  will  first  relate,  without  any  theoretical  discus- 
sion, the  cases  I  have  observed,  and  interpolate  my 
own  remarks. 

I  was  consulted  by  a  workman,  aged  thirty-two, 
whose  apprehensive  and  almost  abject  appearance 
allowed  the  "sexual  neurasthenic"  to  be  recognised 
even  at  a  distance.  My  first  thought  was  that  he  was 
being  tormented  by  conscience-pangs  due  to  mas- 
turbation, but  his  complaint  proved  to  be  a  much 
more  serious  one.  In  spite  of  his  age,  and  in  spite 
of  innumerable  attempts,  he  had  never  been  able,  so 
he  told  me,  properly  to  perform  cohabitation;  an 
inadequate  erection  and  ejaculatio  praecox  had  al- 
ways made  the  immissio  impossible.  He  had  sought 
help  from  various  physicians ;  one  of  them  ( a  no- 
torious newspaper-advertiser)  spoke  to  him  roughly, 
saying  "You  have  masturbated,  that  is  why  you 
are  impotent,"  and  on  this  the  patient,  who  in  fact 
had  indulged  in  self-gratification  from  his  fifteenth 
to  his  eighteenth  year,  as  the  result  of  this  consul- 
tation went  home  convinced  that  the  sexual  capacity 
was  the  well-deserved  and  irrevocable  consequence 
of  the  "sins  of  his  youth."  Nevertheless  he  made 

5  Freud's  works  may  be  referred  to  in  this  connection,  as  well 
as  the  following  ones  by  two  Vienna  physicians:  M.  Steiner, 
"Die  funktionelle  Impotenz  des  Mannes,"  Wiener  med.  Presse, 
1907,  Nr.  42  (also  Die  psychischen  Storungen  der  mannlichen 
Potenz,  1913,  by  the  same  author:  Translator's  Note),  and  W. 
Stekel,  Nervose  Angstzustande,  1908. 


14  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

further  efforts  to  be  cured,  and  went  through  among 
others  a  long  hydriatic  and  electrical  treatment, 
without  success.  The  patient  would  already  have 
bowed  to  the  inevitable,  but  that  he  had  recently  be- 
come attached  to  a  very  suitable  girl;  the  wish  to 
marry  her  was  the  motive  of  his  present  attempt  to 
be  cured. 

The  case  is  a  very  everyday  one,  nor  did  the  an- 
amnesic  exploration  and  the  examination  of  the  pa- 
tient bring  out  anything  special  in  addition.  It 
became  evident  that  besides  the  impotence  he  suffered 
from  a  neurotic  symptom-complex:  various  paraes- 
thesias,  auditory  hyperaesthesia,  pronounced  hypo- 
chondria, disturbed  sleep  with  unpleasant  dreams; 
altogether,  therefore,  an  anxiety-neurosis  in  Freud's 
sense,  for  which  an  adequate  explanation  was  to  be 
found  in  the  lack  of  sexual  gratification  and  the  fre- 
quent frustrated  excitations.  The  patient,  although 
the  coitus-mechanism  completely  failed  at  just  the 
critical  moment,  indulged  in  phantasies,  both  when 
awake  and  when  half-asleep,  the  content  of  which 
was  entirely  comprised  of  sexual  situations,  and 
during  these  experienced  the  most  intense  erections. 
This  circumstance  aroused  in  me  tHe  suspicion  that 
besides  the  nervous  results  of  the  abstinence  he  might 
also  be  suffering  from  a  psychoneurosis,  and  that  the 
cause  of  the  impotence  itself  would  have  to  be  sought 
in  the  inhibiting,  interdicting  power  of  an  uncon- 
scious psychical  complex,  which  became  operative 


Psychosexual  Impotence  15 

just  at  the  moment  of  the  wished-for  sexual  union. 
This  pathological  condition  has,  under  the  term 
"psychical  impotence,"  long  been  known  to  us,  and 
we  have  known  that  with  it  the  inhibiting  action 
of  morbid  anxiety  and  fear  makes  impassable  the 
otherwise  intact  sexual  reflex-arcs.  It  was  formerly 
believed,  however,  that  such  cases  were  fully  ex- 
plained by  the  "cowardice"  of  the  patient  or  by  the 
conscious  memory  of  a  want  of  success  sexually,  and 
our  medical  activity  was  confined  to  calming  or  en- 
couraging the  patient,  with  successful  results  in  a 
certain  number  of  cases.  With  a  knowledge  of 
Freud's  psychology  I  could  not  remain  content 
with  such  superficial  explanations ;  I  had  to  suppose 
that  not  conscious  fear,  but  unconscious  mental 
processes,  having  an  absolutely  definite  content 
and  taking  their  origin  in  infantile  memory-traces, 
probably  some  childish  sexual  wish  that  in  the  course 
of  the  individual  cultural  development  had  become 
not  only  unobtainable,  but  even  unthinkable,  would 
have  to  be  made  responsible  for  the  symptom.  I 
received  merely  negative  answers  to  the  questions 
put  to  him  along  these  lines.  Nothing  special  had 
happened  to  him  in  a  sexual  connection ;  his  parents 
and  the  family  had  always  been  very  decent  and  re- 
served in  this  respect,  and  as  a  child  he  had  not 
bothered  himself  in  the  least  about  "these  matters ;" 
he  knew  himself  to  be  entirely  free  of  homosexual 
impulses ;  the  thought  of  the  functioning  of  "erogen- 


16  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

ous  zones"  (anal-  and  oral-erotism)  filled  him  with 
repugnance;  the  doings  of  exhibitionists,  voyeurs, 
sadists  and  masochists  were  almost  quite  unknown 
to  him.  At  the  most  he  had,  rather  unwillingly,  to 
admit  a  somewhat  excessive  fondness  for  the  female 
foot  and  its  covering,  without  being  able  to  give  any 
information  as  to  the  source  of  this  fetishistic  par- 
tiality. I  allowed  the  patient,  of  course,  to  relate 
exactly  how  he  had  gained  his  knowledge  of  sexual 
matters,  what  his  phantasies  consisted  of  during  the 
period  of  self-gratification,  and  how  the  first  at- 
tempts at  cohabitation,  unsuccessful  from  the  start, 
had  passed  off.  Still  even  this  detailed  anamnesis 
did  not  elicit  anything  that  I  would  have  been  able 
to  accept  as  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  psycho- 
sexual  inhibition.  We  know,  however,  since  Freud's 
work  that  such  an  account  of  the  illness  does  not  re- 
produce the  real  story  of  the  individual's  develop- 
ment, even  with  complete  honesty  and  a  keen  mem- 
ory on  the  part  of  the  person  questioned ;  so  cleverly 
can  consciousness  "overlook"  and  "forget"  thoughts 
and  memories  that  have  become  disagreeable  that 
they  can  be  withdrawn  from  the  repression  or  made 
conscious  only  by  laborious  analytic  work.  I  did  not 
hesitate,  therefore,  to  apply  the  analytic  method. 

In  the  analysis  it  soon  turned  out  that  the  sus- 
picion as  to  the  presence  of  a  psychoneurosis  was 
justified.  With  closer  attention  the  neurotic  nature 
of  the  paraesthesias  mentioned  above  was  recognis- 


Psycliosexual  Impotence  17 

able  ("pains"  and  "crackling"  in  the  tendons,  "agi- 
tation" in  the  abdominal  and  crural  muscles,  etc.), 
but  besides  these  there  appeared  a  number  of  un- 
doubtedly obsessive  thoughts  and  feelings:  he  dared 
not  look  people  in  the  eyes ;  he  was  a  coward ;  he  felt 
as  if  he  had  committed  a  crime ;  he  was  always  afraid 
of  getting  laughed  at. 

Obsessive  ideas  and  sensations  of  this  kind  are 
typical  of  sexual  impotence.  The  cowardice  of  the 
sexually  impotent  person  is  explained  by  the  radia- 
tion over  the  whole  individuality  of  the  humiliating 
consciousness  of  such  an  imperfection.  Freud  speaks 
very  appositely  of  the  "prefigurativeness  of  sexu- 
ality" for  the  rest  of  the  psychical  behaviour.  The 
degree  of  sureness  in  sexual  efficiency  becomes  the 
standard  for  the  sureness  in  demeanour,  in  views,  and 
in  conduct.  The  motiveless  consciousness  of  guilt, 
however,  that  seemed  to  play  a  not  inconsiderable 
part  with  our  patient,  made  one  suspect  the  presence 
of  deeper,  suppressed,  unconscious  thought-pro- 
cesses, which  in  a  certain  sense  were  really  "sinful ;" 
the  analysis  gradually  yielded  the  psychical  material 
from  which  I  was  able  to  infer  the  nature  of  this 
"sin." 

It  struck  me  above  all  that  in  his  sexually  coloured 
dreams  the  patient  occupied  himself  very  frequently 
with  corpulent  women  whose  faces  he  never  saw,  and 
with  whom  he  was  unable  to  bring  about  sexual  union 
even  in  dreams ;  on  the  contrary,  instead  of  an  emis- 


18  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

sion  occurring,  as  might  have  been  expected,  he  would 
be  overtaken  by  acute  dread  and  would  wake  up  in 
alarm  with  such  thoughts  as :  "This  is  impossible !" 
"This  situation  is  unthinkable."  After  such  anxiety- 
dreams  he  would  wake  up  exhausted,  bathed  in  sweat, 
with  palpitation,  and  usually  had  "a  bad  day." 

The  fact  that  in  the  dream  he  never  saw  the  face 
of  the  sexual-object  I  had  to  interpret  as  a  dream- 
distortion  (Freud);  it  serves  the  purpose  here  of 
making  the  person  towards  whom  the  libidinous 
dream-wish  was  directed  unrecognisable  in  conscious- 
ness. The  starting  up  in  alarm  signified  that  it  was 
nevertheless  beginning  to  dawn  in  his  consciousness 
how  "unthinkable  this  situation  was"  with  the  woman 
hinted  at  by  the  dream.  The  anxiety-attack  is  the 
effective  reaction  of  consciousness  against  wish- 
fulfilment  of  the  unconscious.6 

The  unconscious  interdiction  of  full  sexual  gratifi- 
cation was  so  strict  in  the  patient  that  even  in  day 
dreams,  when  he  indulged  in  his  sexual  phantasies, 
he  had  in  a  terrified  way  to  pull  himself  together 

•The  Hungarian  poet  Ignotus  seems  to  have  surmised  the 
existence  of  the  distortion  and  censuring  of  dreams,  as  is  evi- 
dent from  the  following  fragment  of  verse: 

"...  A    coward's    dreams    betray   the   man: 
So  harshly  can  Fate  ply  her  flail, 
That  of  safety  he  dare  not  even  dream." 

It  had  occurred  to  me  long  ago  (see  the  article  on  "Love  and 
Science"  in  Gy6gy6szat,  1901)  that  for  any  useful  writings  on 
individual-psychology  we  have  to  go  not  to  scientific  literature, 
but  to  belles-lettres. 


Psychosexual  Impotence  19 

and  somehow  divert  his  thoughts  elsewhere  in  the 
moment  when  he  was  about  to  imagine  to  himself 
the  act  of  cohabitation.7 

A  certain  active  cruelty  made  its  appearance  sev- 
eral times  in  his  dreams ;  for  instance,  he  bit  some- 
one's finger  off,  or  bit  someone's  face.  It  was  not 
hard  to  recognise  the  source  of  these  cannibalistic 
inclinations  in  the  infantile  hostility  against  a 
brother,  twenty  years  older,  who  in  his  time  had 
behaved  much  too  strictly  and  not  at  all  kindly 
towards  his  little  brothers.  This  propensity  for 
cruelty,  by  the  way,  also  lurked  in  the  waking  state 
behind  the  patient's  "manifest"  cowardice.  Every 
time  it  was  discovered  in  how  cowardly  a  manner  he 
had  behaved  in  regard  to  this  or  that  person  (mostly 
a  superior)  he  would  sink  into  phantasies  that  lasted 
for  several  minutes,  in  which  he  depicted  himself  in 
the  greatest  detail  how  he  would  conduct  himself  on 
the  next  opportunity  in  a  similar  situation,  what 
bodily  castigations  and  abusive  language  he  would 

1  Freud  first  called  attention  to  the  frequent  occurrence  of 
anxious  examination-dreams  in  those  sexually  impotent,  and  I 
can  fully  confirm  this  observation.  The  dream  phantasy  of  sit- 
ting for  an  examination  very  often  recurs  with  such  people  as 
a  "typical  dream,"  and  is  constantly  associated  with  the  un- 
pleasant feeling  of  not  being  ready,  of  making  a  fool  of  one- 
self, etc.  This  feeling  is  a  dream-displaced  affect;  it  belongs 
to  the  consciousness  of  the  sexual  incapacity.  A  synonym  of 
cohabitation  that  is  commonly  used  in  vulgar  Hungarian  ("to 
shoot")  is  probably  the  reason  why  in  the  dreams  of  impotent 
patients  under  my  treatment  situations  so  often  recur  in  which 
the  chief  part  is  played  by  the  (mostly  clumsy)  use  of  weapons 
(e.  y.  rusting  of  the  rifle,  missing  the  target,  missing  fire  in 
shooting,  etc.). 


80  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analyst* 

serve  out.8  This  is  an  expression  of  the  esprit 
d'escalier  so  frequent  amongst  psychoneurotics,  or, 
as  Freud  terms  it,  "subsequentness."  These  high- 
flown  plans,  however,  remain  for  the  most  part  otiose 
phantasy-pictures ;  dread  or  fear  always  paralyses 
the  patient's  hand  and  tongue  again  and  again  in 
the  critical  moment.  The  analysis  finds  a  determin- 
ing factor  of  this  kind  of  cowardice  in  the  infantile 
awe  of  the  parents  and  older  members  of  the  family, 
which  at  that  time  restrained  the  child's  revolt 
against  their  rebukes  and  bodily  chastisements. 

With  the  close  physiological  connection  and  the 
ideational  association  that  obtain  between  the  sexual 
function  and  the  passage  of  urine  I  found  it  intelligi- 
ble that  the  patient's  inhibition  also  made  its  appear- 
ance, as  it  soon  turned  out,  in  regard  to  micturition. 
He  was  unable  to  discharge  urine  in  the  presence  of 
a  second  person.  So  long  as  he  was  quite  alone  in  a 
public  urinal  he  urinated  regularly,  and  with  a  good 
stream ;  at  the  moment  when  anyone  entered  the  flow 
was  "as  if  cut  off,"  and  he  became  unable  to  press  out 
even  a  drop. 

From  this  symptom,  as  also  from  his  bashfulness 
in  regard  to  men,  I  inferred  that  with  the  patient,  as 
with  most  neurotics  (Freud),  the  homosexual  compo- 
nent was  present  in  a  higher  degree  than  usual.  I 
believed  that  the  infantile  source  of  this  was  to  be 

•  In  Ibsen's  "Pretenders"  the  figure  of  the  Bishop  Nicholas 
excellently  illustrates  cowardice  and  concealed  cruelty  as  the 
result  of  sexual  impotence. 


Psychosexual  Impotence  21 

sought  in  his  relation  to  a  younger  brother,  with 
whom  he  had  slept  in  the  same  bed  for  years,  and 
with  whom  he  had  lived  in  an  offensive  and  defensive 
league  against  the  elder  brother  who  ill-treated  them. 
With  the  expression   "usual  amount   of  homosexu- 
ality" I  imply  that  my  psycho-analyses,  now  quite 
numerous,  support  the  theory  of  psycho-bisexualityA 
according  to  which  there  is  retained  from  the  original  / 
bisexual  disposition  of  man  not  only  anatomical,  but  \ 
also    psychosexual    rudiments,   which  under   certain 
circumstances  may  obtain  the  supremacy. 

On  the  ground  of  other  similar  analyses  I  sus- 
pected that  the  corpulent  woman  who  recurred  in  the 
dreams  stood  for  some  near  relative  of  the  patient, 
the  mother  or  a  sister;  he  indignantly  rejected  this 
imputation,  however,  and  triumphantly  told  me  that 
he  had  only  one  corpulent  sister,  and  it  was  just  this 
one  that  he  couldn't  bear ;  he  had  always  been  sullen 
and  gruff  towards  her.  When,  however,  one  has  ex- 
perienced, as  I  have,  how  often  a  sympathy  that  is 
burdensome  to  consciousness  is  hidden  behind  an  ex- 
aggerated harshness  and  ill-temper,  one's  suspicion 
is  not  lulled  by  information  such  as  this.9 

On  one  of  the  following  da}'s  the  patient  had  a 
peculiar  hypnagogic  hallucination,  which  with  slight 
modifications  he  had  already  noticed  a  few  times  be- 
fore: in  the  act  of  going  to  sleep  he  had  the  feeling 
as  if  his  feet  (which,  though  naked,  appeared  to  him 

•"I  hate  because  I  cannot  love."     (Ibsen.) 


22  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

to  have  shoes  on)  were  rising  in  the  air,  while  his 
head  sank  deep  down ;  he  awakened  at  once  with  an 
intense  feeling  of  dread.  Having  regard  to  the  al- 
ready mentioned  foot-  and  shoe-fetishism  I  submit- 
ted afresh  to  an  exact  analysis  the  patient's  free 
associations  to  this  theme,  with  the  result  that  the 
following  memory-images  emerged,  which  he  had  long 
forgotten,  and  which  were  most  painful  to  him :  The 
corpulent  sister,  whom  he  "couldn't  stand,"  and  who 
was  ten  years  older  than  the  patient,  used  to  undo 
and  do  up  the  shoes  of  her  then  three-  or  four-year- 
old  brother,  and  it  also  not  infrequently  happened 
that  she  would  let  him  ride  on  her  naked  leg  (cov- 
ered only  by  a  short  stocking),  whereupon  he  used 
to  experience  a  voluptuous  sensation  in  his  member. 
(Since  this  is  obviously  a  "cover-memory"  in  Freud's 
sense,  more  must  have  passed  between  them).  When 
he  wanted  to  repeat  this  later  on  his  sister,  now  four- 
teen or  fifteen  years  old,  rebuffed  him  with  the  re- 
proach that  such  conduct  was  improper  and  indecent. 
I  was  now  able  to  tell  the  patient  of  my  assured 
conviction  that  the  psychological  ground  for  his  im- 
potence was  to  be  sought  in  the  wish  for  the  repetition 
of  those  sexual  acts,  a  wish  incompatible  with  the 
"cultivated  sexual-morality"  (V.  Ehrenfels,  Freud) 
and  hence  repressed,  but  which  lived  on  in  the  uncon- 
scious. The  patient,  with  whom  the  arguments  only 
half  prevailed,  adhered  to  his  denial,  but  his  resis- 
tance did  not  last  much  longer.  He  came  shortly 


Psychosexual  Impotence  23 

after  with  the  news  that  he  had  thought  over  what 
I  had  said  to  him,  and  recollected  how  in  his  youth 
(from  the  fifteenth  to  the  eighteenth  year)  he  would 
select  this  infantile  experience  with  his  sister  as  the 
object  of  his  masturbation  phantasies ;  indeed,  it  was 
the  dread  of  his  conscience  after  self-gratification  of 
this  kind  that  had  moved  him  to  give  up  masturba- 
tion altogether.  Since  that  time  the  childhood  story 
had  never  occurred  to  his  mind  till  now. 

I  induced  the  patient  from  the  beginning  to  con- 
tinue during  the  treatment  his  attempts  at  cohabita- 
tion. After  the  dream-analysis  related  above  he 
came  one  day  with  the  surprising  news  that  on  the 
day  before  (for  the  first  time  in  his  life)  he  had  suc- 
ceeded in  this ;  the  erection,  the  duration  of  the  fric- 
tion, and  the  orgasm  had  given  him  complete  satis- 
faction, and,  with  the  avidity  characteristic  of  neu- 
rotics, he  repeated  the  act  twice  again  on  the  same 
evening,  each  time  with  a  different  woman. 

I  continued  with  the  treatment  and  began  to  re- 
duce analytically  the  other  symptoms  of  his  neurosis, 
but  the  patient,  after  he  had  achieved  his  chief  aim 
and  convinced  himself  of  the  durability  of  the  result, 
lacked  the  necessary  interest  for  the  analysis,  and  so 
I  discharged  him  after  treating  him  for  two  months. 

This  therapeutic  success  needs  explaining.  From 
Freud's  pioneering  work  on  the  evolution  of  sexual- 
ity in  the  individual  (Drei  AWiandlimgen)  we  learnt 
that  the  child  receives  his  first  sexual  impressions 


24  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

from  the  immediate  environment,  and  that  these  im- 
pressions determine  the  direction  in  the  later  choice 
of  the  sexual-object.  It  may  happen,  however,  that 
— as  a  result  of  constitutional  causes  or  of  external 
favouring  factors  (e.  g.  spoiling) — the  incestuous 
object-choice  becomes  fixed.  Cultural  morality, 
gradually  strengthened  by  example  and  education 
defends  itself  energetically  against  the  obtrusion  of 
the  improper  wishes,  and  repression  of  these  comes 
about.  This  defence  to  begin  with  succeeds  com- 
pletely ("Period  of  successful  defence,"  Freud) — as 
also  in  our  case — ,  but  the  suppressed  wishes  may 
again  become  active  under  the  influence  of  the  or- 
ganic-sexual development  in  puberty,  making  neces- 
sary another  corresponding  stage  in  repression.  The 
second  repression  signified  for  our  patient  the  be- 
ginning of  the  psychoneurosis,  which  manifested 
itself  in,  amongst  other  ways,  the  psychosexual  in- 
hibition and  the  aversion  to  the  sister.  He  was 
incapable  of  performing  the  sexual  act,  since  every 
woman  reminded  him  unconsciously  of  his  sister ;  and 
he  couldn't  endure  his  sister  because,  without  know- 
ing it,  he  always  saw  in  her  not  only  the  relative, 
but  also  the  woman.  The  antipathy  was  a  good 
means  of  protection  against  his  becoming  conscious 
of  a  feeling-stream  of  the  opposite  kind. 

Still  the  unconscious  (in  Freud's  sense)  is  only 
able  to  control  the  mental  and  bodily  being  of  man 
until  the  analysis  reveals  the  content  of  the  thought- 


Psychosexual  Impotence  25 

processes  hidden  in  it.  Once  the  light  of  conscious- 
ness has  illuminated  these  mental  processes  there  is 
an  end  of  the  tyrannical  power  of  the  unconscious 
complex.  The  repressed  thoughts  cease  to  be  heaps 
and  collections  of  non-abreacted  affects ;  they  be- 
come links  in  the  ideational  chain  of  normal  asso- 
ciation. It  was,  therefore,  in  our  case  thanks  to  the 
analysis,  i.  e.  to  a  kind  of  "circumvention  of  the 
censor"  (Freud),  that  the  affective  energy  of  the 
complex  was  no  longer  converted  into  a  physical 
compulsion- (inhibition-)  symptom,  but  was  disinte- 
grated and  led  off  by  thought-activity,  losing  its  in- 
adequate 10  significance  forever. 

That  incestuous  fixation  of  the  "sexual  hunger"11 
is  to  be  recognized  not  as  an  exceptional,  but  as  a 
relatively  frequent  cause  of  psychosexual  impotence, 
is  shewn  by  the  quite  analogous  psycho-analyses  by 
Steiner  and  Stekel.  I  am  also  able  to  bring  forward 
a  second  similar  case.  A  psychoneurotic,  twenty- 
eight  years  old  (who  had  been  treated  by  me  and 
at  that  time  was  almost  cured),  was  tormented  by 
anxious  obsessions  and  obsessive  acts,  and  suffered 
besides  from  psycho-sexual  inhibition,  just  like  the 
patient  whose  history  was  related  above.  This  symp- 
tom, however,  ceased  of  itself  in  the  sixth  month  of 
the  analysis  after  we  managed  to  make  conscious 
infantile  incest-thoughts  that  had  been  fixed  on  the 

10  (This  word  is  used  in  psychopathology  to  mean  "dispropor- 
tionate."   Translator.) 
uThis  word  is  used  to  translate  the  German  "Libido." 


86  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

person  of  the  mother.  When  I  mention  that  this 
otherwise  rather  "over-moral"  patient  also  indulged 
in  hostile  phantasies  against  his  father  among  his  un- 
conscious thought-processes,  one  will  recognize  in  him 
a  typical  personification  of  the  Oedipus  myth,  the 
general  human  significance  of  which  has  been  re- 
vealed by  Freud's  discoveries. 

The  libidinous  thoughts  repressed  in  childhood, 
which  condition  psychical  impotence,  need  not  refer 
to  the  nearest  relatives;  it  is  enough  that  the  in- 
fantile sexual-object  has  been  a  so-called  "respected 
person,"  demanding  in  one  way  or  another  high  con- 
sideration. As  an  example  of  this  I  may  cite  a 
patient,  aged  forty-five,  with  whom  both  the  torment- 
ing "cardiac  anxiety"  (angina  pectoris  nervosa)  and 
the  sexual  weakness  considerably  improved  after 
he  was  able  to  give  an  account  of  repressed  disre- 
spectful phantasies,  the  object  of  which  was  his 
dead  foster-mother.  In  this  case  the  incestuous  fix- 
ation (if  this  designation  is  permitted  in  regard  to 
people  not  related  in  blood)  was  furthered  by  the 
circumstance  that  the  foster-mother  also  had  not  re- 
strained her  child-love  within  the  necessary  limits; 
she  let  the  boy  sleep  in  her  bed  till  his  tenth  year, 
and  for  a  long  time  tolerated  without  contradicting 
him  his  demonstrations  of  affection,  which  was  al- 
ready plainly  tinged  with  erotism.  Children  are 
often  exposed  to  such  dangers  and  temptations  from 
the  side  of  their  teachers  and  educators ;  it  is  not 


Psychosexual  Impotence  87 

rare  for  them  to  fall  a  victim  to  masked  sexual  acts 
on  the  part  of  grown-up  relatives,  and  not  only — 
as  might  have  been  supposed — in  the  slums,  but  also 
among  classes  of  society  where  the  greatest  possible 
care  is  lavished  on  children.12 

The  tragic  part  that  the  foster-mother  had  played 
in  the  life  of  this  patient  was  shewn  by  the  fact  that, 
when  he  wanted  to  marry,  a  few  years  ago,  the  old 
lady,  then  over  seventy  years  old,  committed  suicide 
in  her  despair ;  she  threw  herself  out  of  the  window  of 
the  second  floor 13  just  in  the  moment  that  her 
adopted  son  left  the  front  door.  The  patient  be' 
lieved  that  the  motive  for  this  deed  was  her  dissatis- 
faction with  his  choice.  But  his  unconscious  must 
have  interpreted  the  suicide  more  correctly,  for  about 
this  time  appeared  the  cardiac  pains,  which  one  re- 
gards as  converted  (projected  into  the  corporeal 
sphere)  "heart-ache."  The  sexual  weakness  had  ex- 
isted with  this  patient  since  puberty,  and  he  will 
perhaps  attain  full  sexual  capacity  only  towards 
the  decline  of  masculine  life. 

Steiner  distinguishes,  besides  the  cases  of  func- 
tional impotence  that  are  determined  by  unconscious 
complexes  of  infantile  origin,  two  other  kinds  of 
psychosexual  inhibition;  with  one  of  these  congeni- 
tal sexual  inferiority,  with  the  other  certain  injuri- 

12  See  Freud's  Kleine  Schriften,  S.  114,  and  also  my  article 
"Sexual-Padagogik,"  Budapesti  Orvosi  Ujsdg,  1908. 

18  [In  America  this  would  be  called  the  fourth  floor,  in  Eng- 
land the  third.  Translator.] 


28  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

ous  influences  acting  after  puberty,  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  causative  agents.  The  value  of  this 
division  is,  in  my  opinion,  more  a  practical  than  a 
theoretical  one.  From  the  "congenital"  cases  we 
have  above  all  to  exclude  the  cases  of  pseudo- 
heredity,  where  neuropathic  parents  as  a  result  of 
their  complaint  treat  the  children  wrongly,  train 
them  badly,  and  may  expose  them  to  influences  that 
have  as  a  result  a  subsequent  sexual  inhibition, 
whereas  without  these  influences  even  the  person 
afflicted  through  heredity  would  perhaps  not  have 
become  sexually  impotent. 

Freud  compares  the  pathogenesis  of  the  neuroses 
with  that  of  tuberculosis.  The  predisposition  also 
plays  an  important  part  with  the  latter,  but  the 
real  pathogenic  agent  is  none  the  less  only  the  Bacil- 
lus Kochii,  and  if  this  could  be  kept  at  a  distance 
not  a  single  soul  would  die  of  the  predisposition 
alone.  Sexual  influences  of  childhood  play  the  same 
part  in  the  neuroses  as  bacteria  do  in  infective  dis- 
eases. And  though  one  must  admit  that  where  the 
predisposition  is  very  marked  the  ubiquitous,  un- 
avoidable impressions  may  suffice  to  determine  a  fu- 
ture functional  impotence,  one  has  nevertheless  to 
be  absolutely  clear  that  these  impressions,  and  not 
the  unsubstantial  "predisposition,"  are  the  specific 
cause  (Freud)  of  the  disorder.  From  this  it  also 
follows  that  even  with  "congenital  sexual  inferiority" 


Psychosexual  Impotence  29 

psycho-analysis  is  not  quite  without  hopeful  possi- 
bilities. 

The  psychosexual  impotence  that  is  acquired  after 
puberty  also  differs,  in  my  opinion,  only  apparently 
from  that  constellated  by  unconscious  complexes. 
When  anyone,  after  being  able  for  a  time  properly 
to  perform  the  act  of  copulation,  loses  for  a  long 
period  his  capacity  under  the  impression  of  special 
circumstances  (e.  g.  fear  of  infection,  of  pregnancy, 
of  being  detected,  too  great  sexual  excitement,  etc.), 
one  may  be  confident  that  repressed  infantile  com- 
plexes are  present  in  him  also,  and  that  the  exag- 
geratedly long  or  intense,  i.  e.  pathological,  effect 
of  the  present  harmful  agent  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the 
affect  that  has  been  transferred  from  such  complexes 
to  the  current  reaction.  From  a  practical  point  of 
view  Steiner  is  entirely  right  when  he  brings  this 
group  into  special  prominence,  for  the  cases  to  be 
reckoned  here  are  often  curable  by  simple  tranquilli- 
sation,  suggestive  measures,  or  a  quite  superficial 
analysis  (which  may  be  equated  to  the  old  Breuer- 
Freud  "catharsis"  or  "abreaction").  Still,  this  kind 
of  cure  has  not  the  prophylactic  value  of  the  pene- 
trating psycho-analysis,  although  one  cannot  gain- 
say its  advantage  in  being  a  much  lesser  burden  to 
the  physician  and  the  patient. 

A  superficial  analysis  of  this  kind  restored  his 
potestas  coewndi  to  one  of  my  patients,  a  young  man 


30  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

who  became  impotent  from  hypochondria  after  ac- 
quiring his  first  gonorrhoea,  and  also  to  a  second  one, 
who  was  made  impotent  with  his  wife  by  the  sight  of 
her  menstrual  blood.  Simple  encouragements  and 
suggestive  tranquillisation  had  the  same  effect  with 
a  thirty-six-year-old  man  who,  although  he  had  pre- 
viously been  fairly  active  sexually,  became  impotent 
when  he  married  and  it  was  a  question  of  marital 
*'duty."  In  this  case,  however,  I  continued  the  an- 
alysis after  restoring  the  sexual  function,  and  the 
result  of  this  was  the  discovery  of  the  following 
facts:  The  patient,  the  son  of  a  cooper,  had  in  his 
fourth  or  fifth  year  masturbated  the  genital  parts 
otf  a  girl  of  the  same  age;  in  this  he  was  encouraged 
by  an  undoubtedly  perverse  assistant  of  his  father's, 
who  then  got  the  girl  to  manipulate  the  boy's  prepuce 
wtth  a  small  wooden  needle,  such  as  is  used  for  stop- 
ping up  casks  with  worm  holes  in  them.  In  this  way 
the  needle  happened  to  bore  into  the  prepuce,  and 
a  medical  man  had  to  perform  an  operation  to  take 
il  away.  With  all  this  there  was  considerable  fright, 
dread,  and  shame.  What  depressed  him  still  more, 
however,  was  that  his  comrades  somehow  got  wind 
of  the  occurrence  and  teased  him  for  years  with  the 
nickname  "needle-prick."  He  became  taciturn  and 
sullen.  About  the  time  of  puberty  he  was  often 
frightened  that  the  scar  in  his  prepuce,  trivial  as  it 
was,  would  diminish  his  capacity  for  the  act,  but 
after  a  little  wavering  the  first  attempts  succeeded 


Psychosexual  Impotence  31 

fairly  well.  Still,  the  fear  of  being  unable  to  meet 
the  higher  sexual  claims  of  married  life  entailed  an 
inordinate  burden  for  his  sexuality,  already  weak- 
ened through  an  infantile  complex,  and  after  the 
marriage  he  was  reduced  to  impotence. 

The  case  is  instructive  in  several  respects.  It 
shews  that  when  potency  returns  after  dispersing 
the  current  anxious  ideas,  this  does  not  mean  that 
this  fear  has  been  the  exclusive  cause  of  the  inhibi- 
tion ;  it  is  much  likelier  that,  in  this  case  as  in  all 
similar  ones,  the  preconscious  dread  has  only  a 
"transferred  field  of  activity,"  while  the  original 
source  of  the  disorder  is  hidden  in  the  unconscious. 
The  successful  treatment  by  suggestion  would  then 
have  only  "broken  the  point"  off  the  symptom — as 
Freud  says — i.  e.  would  have  so  far  diminished  the 
total  burthen  of  the  neuropsychical  apparatus  that 
the  patient  could  then  manage  it  alone. 

The  case  also  illustrates  how,  besides  infantile  in- 
cestuous fixation,  other  experiences  of  early  child- 
hood connected  with  the  affect  of  pronounced  shame 
may  later  determine  a  psychosexual  inhibition. 

One  kind  of  shame  deserves  special  mention  on 
account  of  its  practical  importance,  that,  namely, 
which  the  child  feels  on  being  caught  masturbating. 
The  feeling  of  shame  on  such  an  occasion  .is  often 
still  more  strongly  fixed  through  the  child  receiving 
bodily  punishment  and  having  the  fear  of  severe  ill- 
nesses implanted  in  him ;  Freud  has  called  our  atten- 


32  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

tion  to  the  fact  that  the  way  in  which  the  child  is 
weaned  from  onanism  is  a  typical  influence  in  the 
later  character-  and  neurosis-formation.  It  may  be 
asserted  with  confidence  that  the  tactless  behaviour 
of  parents,  teachers,  and  physicians  in  this  matter, 
which  is  so  important  for  the  child,  causes  more  mis- 
chief than  all  the  other  noxious  influences  of  civili- 
sation that  are  so  often  blamed.  The  isolation  of 
children  in  their  sexual  exigencies,  the  resulting  ex- 
aggerated and  false  notions  on  everything  that 
physiologically  or  ideationally  has  to  do  with  sex- 
uality, the  inordinate  strictness  in  the  punishment 
of  sexual  habits  of  childhood,  the  systematic  train- 
ing of  children  to  blind  obedience  and  motiveless 
respect  for  their  parents:  all  these  are  components 
of  a  method  of  education,  unfortunately  prevailing 
to-day,  that  might  also  be  called  artificial  breeding 
of  neuropaths  and  sexually  impotent  people. 

I  may  sum  up  as  follows  my  view  on  male  psycho- 
sexual  impotence:  1.  Male  psychosexual  impotence 
is  always  a  single  manifestation  of  a  psychoneurosis, 
/and  accords  with  Freud's  conception  of  the  genesis 
/  of  psychoneurotic  symptoms.  Thus  it  is  always 
the  symbolic  expression  of  repressed  memory-traces 
of  infantile  sexual  experiences,  of  unconscious  wishes 
striving  for  the  repetition  of  these,  and  of  the  mental 
conflicts  provoked  in  this  way.  These  memory- 
traces  and  wish-impulses  in  sexual  impotence  are 
always  of  such  a  kind,  or  refer  to  such  personalities, 


Psycho  sexual  Impotence  33 

as  to  be  incompatible  with  the  conscious  thought  of 
adult  civilised  human  beings.  The  sexual  inhibition 
is  thus  an  interdiction  on  the  part  of  the  unconscious, 
which  really  is  directed  against  a  certain  variety  of 
sexual  activity,  but  which,  for  the  better  assuring 
of  the  repression,  becomes  extended  to  sexual  gratifi- 
cation altogether. 

2.  The  sexual  experiences  of  early  childhood  that 
determine  the  later  inhibition  may  be  serious  mental 
traumata.     When     the    neurotic    predisposition    is 
marked  however,  unavoidable  and  apparently  harm- 
less  childhood   impressions   may  lead  to   the   same 
result. 

3.  Among  the  pathogenic  causes  of  later  psycho- 
sexual  impotence,  incestuous  fixation   (Freud)   and 
sexual   shame  in   childhood   are   of   specially  great 
significance. 

4.  The  inhibiting  effect  of  the  repressed  complex 
may  manifest  itself  at  once  in  the  first  attempts  at 
cohabitation,  and  become  fixed.    In  slighter  cases  the 
inhibition  becomes  of  importance  only  later,  in  co- 
habitation accompanied  by  apprehension  or  by  spe- 
cially strong  sexual  excitement.    An  analysis  carried 
to   a   sufficient  depth,  however,  would  probably  be 
able   in   all   such   cases   to   demonstrate  beside    (or, 
more  correctly,  behind),  the  current  noxious  influ- 
ence that  is  acting  in  a  depressing  way  also  repressed 
infantile  sexual  memories  and  unconscious  phantasies 
related  to  these. 


34  Contributions  to  Psyclw-Analyv* 

5.  Full  comprehension  of  a  case  of  psychosexunl 
impotence  is  only  thinkable  with  the  help  of  Freud's 
psycho-analysis.     By  means  of  this  method  cure  of 
the  symptom  and  prophylaxis  against  its  return  is 
often  to  be  obtained  even  in  severe  and  inveterate 
cases.     In  mild  cases  suggestion  or  a  superficial  an- 
alysis may  be  successful. 

6.  The  psychoneurosis  of  which  the  sexual  in- 
hibition is  a  part  manifestation  is  as  a  rule  compli- 
cated   by    symptoms    of    an    "actual-neurosis"    in 
Freud's  sense  (neurasthenia,  anxiety-neurosis). 

(The  following  sentence  may  be  added  here,  ex- 
tracted from  a  short  article  written  some  years  later 
by  Dr.  Ferenczi  ("Paraesthesias  of  the  Genital  Re- 
gion in  Impotency,"  Internat.  Zeitschr.  f.  Psycho- 
analyse, May  1913):  "Apart  from  unconscious 
(onanistic)  incest-phantasies,  fears  of  castration 
are  the  most  frequent  cause  of  psychical  impotence; 
most  often  both  are  the  cause  (dread  of  castration 
on  account  of  incest-wishes)."  Transl.). 


CHAPTER  II 

INTROJECTION  AND  TRANSFERENCE1 

/.     Introjection  in  the  Neuroses 

THE  productivity  of  the  neurosis  (during  a 
course  of  psycho-analytic  treatment)  is  far 
from  being  extinguished,  but  exercises  itself  in  the 
creation  of  a  peculiar  sort  of  thought-formation, 
mostly  unconscious,  to  which  the  name  'transfer- 
ences' may  be  given. 

"These  transferences  are  re-impressions  and  re- 
productions of  the  emotions  and  phantasies  that 
have  to  be  awakened  and  brought  into  consciousness 
during  the  progress  of  the  analysis,  and  are  char- 
acterised by  the  replacement  of  a  former  person  by 
the  physician." 

In  these  sentences  Freud  announced,  in  the  mas- 
terly description  of  a  hysterical  case,2  one  of  his 
most  significant  discoveries. 

Whoever  since  then,  following  Freud's  indications, 
has  tried  to  investigate  psycho-analytically  the  men- 

1  Published  in  the  Jahrbuch  der  Psychoanalyse,  1909. 
*"Bruchstiick  einer  Hysteric-analyse,"  in  Sammlung  Kleiner 
Schriften  zur  Neurosenlehre,  Bd.  II. 

35 


36  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

tal  life  of  neurotics,  must  have  become  convinced  of 
the  truth  of  this  observation.  The  greatest  difficul- 
ties of  such  an  analysis,  indeed,  proceed  from  the 
remarkable  peculiarity  of  neurotics  that  "in  order 
to  avoid  insight  into  their  own  unconscious,  they 
transfer  to  the  physician  treating  them  all  their 
affects  (hate,  love)  that  have  been  reinforced  from 
the  unconscious."  3 

When,  however,  one  becomes  more  familiar  with 
the  workings  of  the  neurotic  mind,  one  recognises 
that  the  psychoneurotic's  inclination  to  transference 
expresses  itself  not  only  in  the  special  case  of  a 
psycho-analytic  treatment,  and  not  only  in  regard 
to  the  physician,  but  that  transference  is  a  psychi- 
cal mechanism  that  is  characteristic  of  the  neurosis 
altogether,  one  that  is  evidenced  in  all  situations  of 
life,  and  which  underlies  most  of  the  pathological 
manifestations. 

With  increasing  experience  one  becomes  convinced 
that  the  apparently  motiveless  extravagance  of  af- 
fect, the  excessive  hate,  love  and  sympathy  of  neu- 
rotics, are  also  nothing  else  than  transferences,  by 
means  of  which  long  forgotten  psychical  experiences 
are  (in  the  unconscious  phantasy)  brought  into  con- 
nection with  the  current  occasion,  and  the  current  re- 
action exaggerated  by  the  affect  of  unconscious  idea- 
tional  complexes.  The  tendency  of  hysterical  pa- 

*  Ferenczi,    "Ueber    Aktual-und    Psychoneurosen    im    Sinne 
Freuds,"  Wiener  klin.  Rundschau,  1908,  Nr.  48  to  51. 


Introjection  and  Transference  37 

tients  to  use  exaggeration  in  the  expression  of  their 
emotions  has  long  been  known,  and  often  ridiculed. 
Freud  has  shewn  us  that  it  is  rather  we  physicians 
who  deserve  the  ridicule,  because  failing  to  under- 
stand the  symbolism  of  hysterical  symptoms — the 
language  of  hysteria,  so  to  speak — we  have  either 
looked  upon  these  symptoms  as  implying  simulation, 
or  fancied  we  had  settled  them  by  the  use  of  abstruse 
physiological  terms.  It  was  Freud's  psychological 
conception  of  hysterical  symptoms  and  character 
traits  that  first  really  disclosed  the  neurotic  mind. 
Thus  he  found  that  the  inclination  of  psychoneu- 
rotics  to  imitation,  and  the  "psychical  infection"  so 
frequent  among  hysterics,  are  not  simple  automa- 
tisms, but  find  their  explanation  in  unconscious  pre- 
tensions and  wishes,  which  the  patient  does  not  con- 
fess even  to  himself,  and  which  are  incapable  of 
becoming  conscious.  The  patient  copies  the  symp- 
toms or  character  traits  of  a  person  when  "on  the 
basis  of  an  identical  aetiological  claim"  he  identifies 
himself  in  his  unconscious  with  him.4  The  well- 
known  impressionability  also  of  many  neurotics,  their 
capacity  to  feel  in  the  most  intense  way  for  the  ex- 
periences of  others,  to  put  themselves  in  the  place 
of  a  third  person,  finds  its  explanation  in  hysterical 
identification ;  and  their  impulsive  philanthropic  and 
magnanimous  deeds  are  only  reactions  to  these  un- 
conscious instigations — are  therefore  in  the  last 
4  Freud.  Die  Traumdeutung,  2e  Aufl.,  S.  107. 


88  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

analysis  egoistic  actions  governed  by  the  "unpleas- 
antness (Unlust)  principle."  The  fact  that  every 
sort  of  humanitarian  or  reform  movement,  the  propa- 
ganda of  abstinence  (vegetarianism,  anti-alcoholism, 
abolitionism),  revolutionary  organisations  and  sects, 
conspiracies  for  or  against  the  religious,  political, 
or  moral  order,  teem  with  neuropaths  is  similarly  to 
be  explained  by  the  transference  of  interest  from 
censored  egoistic  (erotic  or  violent)  tendencies  of 
the  unconscious  on  to  fields  where  they  can  work 
themselves  out  without  any  self-reproach.  The 
daily  occurrences  of  a  simple  civic  life  also,  however, 
offer  neurotics  the  richest  opportunity  for  the  dis- 
placement on  to  permissible  fields  of  impulses  that 
are  incapable  of  being  conscious.  An  example  of 
this  is  the  unconscious  identification  of  grossly  sexual 
genital  functions  with  those  of  the  oral  organs  (eat- 
ing, kissing),  as  was  first  established  by  Freud.  In 
a  number  of  analyses  I  have  been  able  to  prove  that 
the  partiality  of  hysterics  for  dainty  feeding,  their 
inclination  to  eat  indigestible  material  (chalk,  unripe 
fruit,  etc.),  their  peculiar  search  for  exotic  dishes, 
their  preference  or  idiosyncrasy  in  regard  to  food 
of  a  certain  form  or  consistency,  that  all  this  was 
concerned  with  the  displacement  of  interest  from 
repressed  erotic  (genital  or  coprophilic)  inclinations, 
and  was  an  indication  of  a  lack  of  sexual  satisfac- 
tion. (The  well-known  manias  of  pregnant  women 
also,  which,  by  the  way,  I  have  observed  with  non- 


Introjection  and  Transference  39 

pregnant  women  as  well  at  the  menstrual  time,  I 
have  many  times  been  able  to  trace  to  insufficient 
satisfactions,  relative  to  the  increased  "sexual  hun- 
ger"). Otto  Gross  and  Stekel  found  a  similar  cause 
with  hysterical  kleptomania. 

I  am  aware  that  in  the  examples  brought  forward 
I  have  confounded  the  expressions  Displacement  and 
Transference.  Transference,  however,  is  only  a  spe- 
cial case  of  the  neurotic's  inclination  to  displace- 
ment; in  order  to  escape  from  complexes  that  are 
unpleasant,  and  hence  have  become  unconscious,  he 
is  forced  to  meet  the  persons  and  things  of  the  outer 
world  with  exaggerated  interest  (love,  hate,  passion- 
ate manias,  idiosyncrasy)  on  the  basis  of  the  most 
superficial  "aetiological  pretensions"  and  analogies. 

A  course  of  psycho-analytic  treatment  offers  the 
most  favourable  conditions  for  the  occurrence  of 
such  a  transference.  The  impulses  that  have  been 
repressed,  and  are  gradually  becoming  conscious, 
first  meet  "m  statu  nescendi"  the  person  of  the  phy- 
sician, and  seek  to  link  their  unsatisfied  valencies  to 
his  personality.  If  we  pursued  this  comparison 
taken  from  chemistry  we  might  conceive  of  psycho- 
analysis, so  far  as  the  transference  is  concerned,  as 
a  kind  of  catalysis-  The  person  of  the  physician  has 
here  the  effect  of  a  catalytic  ferment  that  tempo- 
rarily attracts  to  itself  the  affects  split  off  by  the 
dissection.  In  a  technically  correct  psycho-analysis, 
however,  the  bond  thus  formed  is  only  a  loose  one, 


40  Contribution*  to  Psycho- Analysis 

the  interest  of  the  patient  being  led  back  as  soon  as 
possible  to  its  original,  covered-over  sources  and 
brought  into  permanent  connection  with  them. 

What  slight  and  trivial  motives  suffice  with  neuro- 
tics for  the  transference  of  affects  is  indicated  in  the 
quoted  work  of  Freud.  We  may  add  a  few  charac- 
teristic examples.  A  hysterical  patient  with  very 
strong  sexual  repression  betrayed  first  in  a  dream  the 
transference  to  the  physician.  (I,  the  physician,  am 
operating  on  her  nose,  and  she  is  wearing  a  frisure 
a  la  Cleo  de  Merode.)  Whoever  has  already  analy- 
tically interpreted  dreams  will  readily  believe  that  in 
this  dream,  as  well  also  as  in  the  unconscious  waking 
thought,  I  have  taken  the  place  of  the  rhinologist 
who  once  made  improper  advances  to  the  patient; 
the  frisure  of  the  well-known  demi-mondaine  is  too 
plain  a  hint  of  this.  Whenever  the  physician  ap- 
pears in  the  patient's  dreams  the  analysis  discovers 
with  certainty  signs  of  transference.  Stekel's  book 
on  anxiety  states  5  has  many  pretty  examples  of  this. 
The  case  just  mentioned,  however,  is  also  typical 
in  another  way.  Patients  very  often  use  the  oppor- 
tunity to  revive  all  the  sexual  excitations  they  have 
previously  noticed  and  repressed  during  medical  ex- 
aminations (in  unconscious  phantasies  about  un- 
dressing and  being  percussed,  palpated,  and  "ope- 
rated on"),  and  to  replace  in  the  unconscious  the 

•Stekel,  Nervdse  Angstzustande,  1908. 


Introjection  and  Transference  41 

previous  physicians  in  question  by  the  person  of  the 
present  one.  One  need  only  be  a  physician  to  become 
the  object  of  this  kind  of  transference;  the  mystical 
part  played  in  the  sexual  phantasy  of  the  child  by 
the  doctor,  who  knows  all  forbidden  things,  who  may 
look  at  and  touch  everything  that  is  concealed,  is  an 
obvious  determining  factor  in  unconscious  fancying, 
and  therefore  also  in  the  transference  occurring  in  a 
subsequent  neurosis.8 

With  the  extraordinary  significance  that  attaches 
(according  to  Freud's  conclusion  which  is  confirmed 
daily)  to  the  repressed  "Oedipus-complex"  (hate  and 
love  towards  the  parents)  in  every  case  of  neurosis, 
one  is  not  surprised  that  the  "paternal"  air,  the 
friendly  and  indulgent  manner,  with  which  the  physi- 
cian has  to  meet  the  patient  in  psycho-analysis  gets 
so  frequently  used  as  a  bridge  to  the  transference 
of  conscious  feelings  of  sympathy  and  unconscious 
erotic  phantasies,  the  original  objects  of  which  were 
the  parents.  The  physician  is  always  one  of  the 
"revenants"  (Freud)  in  whom  the  neurotic  patient 
hopes  to  find  again  the  vanished  figures  of  childhood. 
Nevertheless,  one  less  friendly  remark,  reminding  him 
of  a  duty  or  of  punctuality,  or  a  tone  that  is  only  a 
nuance  sharper  than  usual,  on  the  part  of  the  an- 
alysing physician  is  sufficient  to  make  him  incur  all 

'Compare  the  remark  about  the  "doctor  game""  in  Freud's 
article  on  "Infantile  Sexualtheorien,"  Kleine  Schriften,  2e 
FoUre,  S.  171. 


42  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

the  patient's  hate  and  anger  that  is  directed  against 
moralising  persons  who  demand  respect  (parent, 
husband). 

The  ascertaining  of  such  transferences  of  positive 
and  negative  effects  is  exceedingly  important  for  the 
analysis,  for  neurotics  are  mostly  persons  who  believe 
themselves  incapable  either  of  loving  or  of  hating 
( often  denying  to  themselves  even  the  most  primitive 
knowledge  about  sexuality) ;  they  are  therefore 
either  anaesthetic  or  else  good  to  a  fault,  and  nothing 
is  more  suited  to  shatter  their  erroneous  belief  in 
their  own  lack  of  feeling  and  angelic  goodness  than 
having  their  contrary  feeling-currents  detected  and 
exposed  in  flagranti.  The  transferences  are  still 
more  important  as  points  of  departure  for  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  analysis  in  the  direction  of  the  more 
deeply  repressed  thought-complexes. 

Ridiculously  slight  resemblances  also:  the  colour 
of  the  hair,  facial  traits,  a  gesture  of  the  physician, 
the  way  in  which  he  holds  a  cigarette  or  a  pen,  the 
identity  or  the  similarity  in  sound  of  the  Christian 
name  with  that  of  some  person  who  has  been  signifi- 
cant to  the  patient;  even  such  distant  analogies  as 
these  are  sufficient  to  establish  the  transference. 
The  fact  that  a  transference  on  the  ground  of  such 
petty  analogies  strikes  us  as  ridiculous  reminds  me 
that  Freud  in  a  category  of  wit  shewed  the  "presen- 
tation by  means  of  a  detail"  to  be  the  agent  that 
sets  free  the  pleasure,  ».  e.  reinforces  it  from  the  un- 


Introjection  and  Transference  48 

conscious ;  in  all  dreams  also  we  find  similar  allusions 
to  things,  persons,  and  events  by  the  help  of  mini- 
mal details.  The  poetical  figure  "pars  pro  toto"  is 
thus  quite  current  in  the  language  of  the  uncon- 
scious. 

The  sex  of  the  physician  is  in  itself  a  much-used 
bridge  for  the  transference.  Female  patients  very 
often  attach  their  unconscious  heterosexual  phan- 
tasies to  the  fact  that  the  physician  is  a  man;  this 
gives  them  the  possibility  of  reviving  the  repressed 
complexes  that  are  associated  with  the  idea  of  mas- 
culinity. Still  the  homosexual  component  that  is 
hidden  in  everyone  sees  to  it  that  men  also  seek  to 
transfer  to  the  physician  their  "sympathy"  and 
friendship — or  the  contrary.  It  is  enough,  however, 
that  something  in  the  physician  seems  to  the  patient 
to  be  "feminine"  for  women  to  bring  their  homo- 
sexual, and  men  their  heterosexual  interests,  or  their 
aversion  that  is  related  to  this,  into  connection  with 
the  person  of  the  physician. 

In  a  number  of  cases  I  succeeded  in  demonstrating 
that  the  relaxation  of  the  ethical  censor  in  the 
physician's  consulting  room  was  partly  determined 
by  the  lessened  feeling  of  responsibility  on  the  pa- 
tient's part.  The  consciousness  that  the  physician 
is  responsible  for  everything  that  happens  (in  his 
own  room)  favours  the  emergence  of  day-dreams, 
first  unconscious,  later  becoming  conscious,  which 
very  often  have  as  their  subject  a  violent  sexual 


44  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

assault  on  the  part  of  the  physician  and  then  mostly 
end  with  the  exemplary  punishment  of  such  a  vil- 
lain (his  being  sentenced,  publicly  degraded  through 
newspaper  articles,  shot  in  a  duel,  etc.).  It  is  just 
in  this  sort  of  moral  disguise  that  the  repressed 
wishes  of  people  can  become  conscious.  As  another 
motive  lessening  the  feeling  of  responsibility  I  recog- 
nised in  a  patient  the  idea  that  "the  doctor  can  do 
everything,"  by  which  she  understood  the  operative 
removal  of  any  possible  consequence  of  a  liaison. 

In  the  analysis  the  patients  have  to  communicate 
all  these  lewd  plans,  just  as  everything  else  that  oc- 
curs to  them.  In  the  non-analytic  treatment  of 
neurotics  all  this  remains  unknown  to  the  physician, 
and  as  a  result  the  phantasies  sometimes  attain  an 
almost  hallucinatory  character  and  may  end  in  a 
public  or  legal  calumny. 

The  circumstance  that  other  persons  also  are  be- 
ing treated  psychotherapeutically  allows  the  patients 
to  indulge  without  any,  or  with  very  little,  self- 
reproach  the  affects  of  jealousy,  envy,  hate,  and 
violence  that  are  hidden  in  their  unconscious.  Nat- 
urally the  patient  has  then  in  the  analysis  to  detach 
these  "inadequate,"  7  feeling-impulses  also  from  the 
current  inciting  cause,  and  associate  them  with  much 
more  significant  personalities  and  situations.  The 
same  holds  good  for  the  more  or  less  conscious 
thought-processes  and1  feeling-impulses  that  have 

1  (I.  e.  disproportionate,  misplaced,  or  inappropriate.  Transl.) 


Introjection  and  Transference  45 

their  starting-point  in  the  financial  contract  between 
the  patient  and  physician.  In  this  way  many  "mag- 
nanimous," "generous"  people  have  to  see  and  admit 
in  the  analysis  that  the  feelings  of  avarice,  of  ruth- 
less selfishness,  and  of  ignoble  covetousness  are  not 
quite  so  foreign  to  them  as  they  had  previously  liked 
to  believe.  (Freud  is  accustomed  to  say,  "People 
treat  money  questions  with  the  same  mendacity  as 
they  do  sexual  ones.  In  the  analysis  both  have  to 
be  discussed  with  the  same  frankness.")  That  the 
money  complex,  transferred  to  the  treatment,  is  often 
only  the  cover  for  much  more  deeply  hidden  impulses 
Freud  has  established  in  a  masterly  characterologi- 
cal  study  ("Charakter  und  Analerotik"). 

When  we  bear  in  mind  these  different  varieties  of 
the  transference  to  the  physician,  we  become  de- 
cidedly strengthened  in  our  assumption  that  this  is 
only  one  manifestation,  although  in  a  practical  way 
the  most  important  one,  of  the  general  neurotic 
passion  for  transference.  This  passion,  or  mania,  we 
may  regard  as  the  most  fundamental  peculiarity  of 
the  neuroses,  and  also  that  which  goes  most  to  ex- 
plain their  conversion  and  substitution  symptoms. 
All  neurotics  suffer  from  flight  from  their  complexes; 
they  take  flight  into  illness,  as  Freud  says,  from 
the  pleasure  that  has  become  disagreeable;  that  is 
to  say,  they  withdraw  the  "sexual  hunger"  from  cer- 
tain ideational  complexes  that  were  formerly  charged 
with  pleasantness.  When  the  withdrawal  of  "sexual 


46  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

hunger"  is  less  complete,  the  interest  for  what  form- 
erly was  loved  or  hated  disappears,  being  succeeded 
by  indifference;  if  the  detachment  of  the  "sexual 
hunger"  is  more  complete,  then  the  censor  does  not 
let  pass  even  the  slight  degree  of  interest  necessary 
for  the  exercising  of  attention — the  complex  becomes 
"repressed,"  "forgotten,"  and  incapable  of  being 
conscious.  It  would  seem,  however,  as  though  the 
mind  did  not  easily  tolerate  "sexual  hunger"  that 
has  been  released  from  its  complex,  and  is  thus  "free- 
floating."  In  the  anxiety  neurosis,  as  Freud  has 
shewn,  the  deviation  of  the  somatic  sexual  excitation 
from  the  psychical  field  converts  the  pleasure  into 
anxiety.  In  the  psychoneuroses  we  have  to  presup- 
pose a  similar  alteration;  here  the  deviation  of  the 
psychosexual  hunger  from  certain  ideational  com- 
plexes causes  a  sort  of  lasting  unrest,  which  the 
patient  tries  to  mitigate  as  much  as  possible.  He 
manages  also  to  neutralise  a  greater  or  less  part  by 
the  way  of  conversion  (hysteria)  or  of  substitution 
(obsessional  neurosis).'  It  seems,  however,  as  if  this 
bond  were  scarcely  ever  an  absolute  one,  so  that  a 
variable  amount  of  free-floating  and  complex-escap- 
ing excitation  remains  over,  which  seeks  satisfaction 
from  external  objects.  The  idea  of  this  excitation 
could  be  used  to  explain  the  neurotic  passion  for 
transference,  and  be  made  responsible  for  the 
"manias"  of  the  neurotic.  (In  the  petite  hysterie 


Intr ejection  and  Transference  47 

these  manias  seem  to  constitute  the  essence  of  the 
disease.) 

To  understand  better  the  fundamental  character 
of  neurotics  one  has  to  compare  their  behaviour  with 
that  of  patients  suffering  from  dementia  praecox 
and  paranoia.  The  dement  completely  detaches  his 
interest  from  the  outer  world  and  becomes  auto- 
erotic  (Jung,8  Abraham9).  The  paranoiac,  as 
Freud  has  pointed  out,  would  like  to  do  the  same, 
but  cannot,  and  so  projects  on  to  the  outer  world 
the  interest  that  has  become  a  burden  to  him.  The 
neurosis  stands  in  this  respect  in  a  diametrical  con- 
trast to  paranoia.  Whereas  the  paranoiac  expels 
from  his  ego  the  impulses  that  have  become  unpleas- 
ant, the  neurotic  helps  himself  by  taking  into  the 
ego  as  large  as  possible  a  part  of  the  outer  world, 
making  it  the  object  of  unconscious  phantasies. 
This  is  a  kind  of  diluting  process,  by  means  of  which 
he  tries  to  mitigate  the  poignancy  of  free-floating, 
unsatisfied,  and  unsatisfiable,  unconscious  wish-im- 
pulses. One  might  give  to  this  process,  in  contrast 
to  projection,  the  name  of  Intro jection. 

The  neurotic  is  constantly  seeking  for  objects  with 

*  Jung,  Zur  Psychologic  der  Dementia  Praecox,  1907.  ("Lack 
of  pleasant  rapport  in  dementia  praecox.") 

•Abraham,  "Die  psychosexuellen  Differenzen  der  Hysteric 
und  der  Dementia  praecox,"  Zentralbl.  f.  Nervenheilk.  u.  Psych., 
1908.  ("The  contrast  between  dementia  praecox  and  hysteria 
lies  in  the  auto-erotism  of  the  former.  Turning  away  of  'sex- 
ual hunger'  in  the  former,  excessive  investment  of  the  object  in 
the  latter.") 


48  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

whom  he  can  identify  himself,  to  whom  he  can  trans- 
fer feelings,  whom  he  can  thus  draw  into  his  circle 
of  interest,  i.  e.  introject.  We  see  the  paranoiac  on 
a  similar  search  for  objects  who  might  be  suitable 
for  the  projection  of  "sexual  hunger"  that  is  creat- 
ing unpleasant  feeling.  So  finally  there  appear  the 
opposite  characters  of  the  large-hearted,  impression- 
able, excitable  neurotic,  easily  flaming  up  with  love 
of  all  the  world  or  provoked  to  hate  of  all  the  world, 
and  that  of  the  narrow-souled,  suspicious  paranoiac, 
who  thinks  he  is  being  observed,  persecuted,  or  loved 
by  the  whole  world.  The  psychoneurotic  suffers 
from  a  widening,  the  paranoic  from  a  shrinking  of 
his  ego. 

When  we  revise  the  ontogenesis  of  the  ego-con- 
sciousness on  the  basis  of  the  new  knowledge,  we  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  paranoiac  projection 
and  the  neurotic  introjection  are  merely  extreme 
cases  of  psychical  processes  the  primary  forms  of 
which  are  to  be  demonstrated  in  every  normal  being. 

We  may  suppose  that  to  the  new-born  child  every- 
thing perceived  by  the  senses  appears  unitary,  so  to 
speak  monistic.  Only  later  does  he  learn  to  distin- 
guish from  his  ego  the  malicious  things,  forming 
an  outer  world,  that  do  not  obey  his  will.  That 
would  be  the  first  projection  process,  the  primordial 
projection,  and  the  later  paranoiac  probably  makes 
use  of  the  path  thus  traced  out,  in  order  to  expel 
still  more  of  his  ego  into  the  outer  world. 


Int rejection  and  Transference  49 

A  part  of  the  outer  world,  however,  greater  or 
less,  is  not  so  easily  cast  off  from  the  ego,  but 
continually  obtrudes  itself  again  on  the  latter,  chal- 
lenging it,  so  to  speak;  "Fight  with  me  or  be  my 
friend"  (Wagner,  Gotterdammerung,  Act  I).  If  the 
individual  has  unsettled  affects  at  his  disposal,  and 
these  he  soon  has,  he  accepts  this  challenge  by  ex- 
tending his  "interest"  from  the  ego  on  to  the  part  of 
the  outer  world.  The  first  loving  and  hating  is  a 
transference  of  auto-erotic  pleasant  and  unpleasant 
feelings  on  to  the  objects  that  evoke  those  feelings. 
The  first  "object-love"  and  the  first  "object-hate" 
are,  so  to  speak,  the  primordial  transferences,  the 
roots  of  every  future  introjection. 

Freud's  discoveries  in  the  field  of  psychopathology 
of  everyday  life  convince  us  that  the  capacity  for 
projection  and  displacement  is  present  also  in  normal 
human  beings,  and  often  overshoots  the  mark.  Fur- 
ther, the  way  in  which  civilised  man  adjusts  his  ego 
to  the  world,  his  philosophic  and  religious  meta- 
physics, is  according  to  Freud  only  metapsychology, 
for  the  most  part  a  projection  of  feeling-impulses 
into  the  outer  world.  Probably,  however,  besides 
projection  introjection  is  significant  for  man's  view 
of  the  world.  The  extensive  part  played  in  myth- 
ology by  the  anthropomorphising  of  lifeless  objects 
seems  to  speak  in  favour  of  this  idea.  KleinpauPs 
able  work  on  the  development  of  speech,10  to  the 

10  Kleinpaul,  Das  Stromgebiet  der  Sprache,  1893. 


50  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

psychological  significance  of  which  Abraham  u  has 
called  attention,  shews  convincingly  how  man  suc- 
ceeds in  representing  the  whole  audible  and  inaudible 
environment  by  means  of  the  ego,  no  form  of  projec- 
tion and  introjection  remaining  untried  thereby. 
The  way  in  which  in  the  formation  of  speech  a  series 
of  human  sounds  and  noises  gets  identified  with  an 
object  on  the  ground  of  the  most  superficial  acoustic 
analogy,  and  of  the  slightest  "aetiological  claim," 
reminds  one  strongly  of  the  neurotic  transference- 
bridges  mentioned  above. 

The  neurotic  thus  makes  use  of  a  path  that  is 
much  frequented  by  the  normal  as  well  when  he  seeks, 
to  mollify  the  free-floating  affects  by  extension  of 
his  circle  of  interest,  i.  e.  by  introjection,  and  when, 
so  as  to  be  able  to  keep  unconscious  various  affective 
connections  with  certain  objects  that  concern  him 
nearly,  he  lavishes  his  affects  on  all  possible  objects 
that  do  not  concern  him. 

In  analysing  a  neurotic  one  often  succeeds  in 
tracing  out  historically  this  extension  of  the  circle 
of  interest.  Thus  I  had  a  patient  who  was  reminded 
of  sexual  events  of  childhood  by  reading  a  novel  and 
thereupon  produced  a  phobia  of  novels,  which  later 
extended  to  books  altogether,  and  finally  to  every- 
thing in  print.  The  flight  from  a  tendency  to  mas- 
turbate caused  in  one  of  my  obsessional  patients  a 
phobia  of  privies  (where  he  used  to  indulge  this 

11  Abraham.    Traum  und  Mythos,  1909. 


Introjection  and  Transference  51 

tendency)  ;  later  there  developed  from  this  a  claus- 
trophobia, fear  of  being  alone  in  any  closed  space. 
I  have  been  able  to  shew  that  psychical  impotence 
in  very  many  cases  is  conditioned  by  the  transfer- 
ence to  all  women  of  the  respect  for  the  mother  or 
sister.12  With  a  painter  the  pleasure  in  gazing  at 
objects,  and  with  this  the  choice  of  his  profession, 
proved  to  be  a  "replacement"  for  objects  that  as  a 
child  he  might  not  look  at. 

In  the  association  investigations  carried  out  by 
Jung  13  we  can  find  the  experimental  confirmation 
of  this  inclination  of  neurotics  to  introjection. 
What  is  characteristic  for  the  neurosis  Jung  desig- 
nates as  the  relatively  high  number  of  "complex- 
reactions"  :  the  stimulus-words  are  interpreted  by 
the  neurotic  "in  terms  of  his  complex."  The  healthy 
person  responds  quickly  with  an  indifferent  reaction- 
word  that  is  associated  by  either  the  content  or  the 
sound.  With  the  neurotic  the  unsatisfied  affects 
seize  on  the  stimulus-word  and  seek  to  exploit  it  in 
their  own  sense,  for  which  the  most  indirect  associa- 
tion is  good  enough.  Thus  it  is  not  that  the  stimu~ 
lus-words  evoke  the  complicated  reaction,  but  that 
the  stimulus-hungry  affects  of  neurotics  come  to 
meet  them.  Applying  the  newly  coined  word,  one 
may  say  that  the  neurotic  "mtrojects"  the  stimulus- 
words  of  the  experiment. 

"See  Chapter  I.     (Impotence.) 

13  Jung,  Diagnostische   Assoziationsstudien,   1906 


52  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

The  objection  will  be  raised  that  extension  of  the 
circle  of  interest,  identifying  of  oneself  with  many 
people — indeed  with  the  whole  human  race — ,  and 
sensitiveness  for  the  stimuli  of  the  outer  world,  are 
attributes  with  which  normal  persons  also,  and  espe- 
cially the  most  distinguished  representatives  of  the 
race,  are  endowed ;  that  one  cannot,  therefore,  desig- 
nate introjection  as  the  psychical  mechanism  that 
is  typical  and  characteristic  of  the  neuroses. 
Against  this  objection  must  be  brought  the  knowl- 
edge that  the  fundamental  differences,  assumed  be- 
fore Freud's  time,  between  normal  and  psychoneuro 
tic  do  not  exist.  Freud  shewed  us  that  "the  neuroses 
have  no  special  psychical  content  that  is  peculiar 
to  them  and  occurs  only  in  them,"  and  according  to 
Jung's  statement,  neurotics  suffer  from  complexes 
with  which  we  all  fight.  The  difference  between  the 
two  is  only  quantitative  and  of  practical  import. 
The  healthy  person  transfers  his  affects  and  identi- 
fies himself  on  the  basis  of  "aetiological  claims" 
that  have  a  much  better  motive  than  in  the  case  of 
the  neurotic,  and  thus  does  not  dissipate  his  psychi- 
cal energies  so  foolishly  as  the  latter  does. 

Another  difference,  to  the  cardinal  importance  of 
which  Freud  has  called  attention,  is  that  the  healthy 
person  is  conscious  of  the  greater  part  of  his  intro- 
jection, whereas  with  the  neurotic  this  remains  for 
the  most  part  repressed,  finds  expression  in  wncon- 
gcious  phantasies,  and  becomes  manifest  to  the  expert 


Introjection  and  Transference  53 

only  indirectly,  symbolically.  It  very  often  appears 
in  the  form  of  "reaction-formations,"  as  an  exces- 
sive accentuation  in  consciousness  of  a  current  of 
feeling  that  is  the  opposite  of  the  unconscious  one. 

The  fact  that  the  pre-Freudian  literature  con- 
tained nothing  of  all  these  matters,  of  transferences 
to  the  physician,  of  introjections — fa  ne  les  em- 
pechait  pas  d'exister.  With  this  remark  I  consider 
answered  also  those  critics  who  repudiate  the  posi- 
tive results  of  psycho-analysis  as  not  even  worthy 
of  being  re-examined,  but  who  readily  accept  our 
estimate,  on  which  we  insist,  of  the  difficulties  of  this 
method  of  investigation,  and  use  it  as  a  weapon 
against  the  new  movement.  Thus  I  have  come  across 
among  others  the  curious  objection  that  psycho- 
analysis is  dangerous  because  it  brings  about  trans- 
ferences to  the  physician,  where  significantly  enough 
there  was  never  any  talk  of  the  negative  transfer- 
ences,14 but  always  of  the  erotic  ones. 

If,  however,  transference  is  dangerous,  then,  to 
be  consistent,  all  neurologists,  including  the  oppo- 
nents of  Freud,  must  give  up  having  anything  to 
do  with  neurotics,  for  we  get  more  and  more  con- 
vinced that  in  the  non-analytic  and  non-psycho- 
therapeutic  methods  of  treating  the  neuroses  also 

"The  practical  significance  and  the  exceptional  position  of 
the  kind  of  introjections  that  have  as  their  object  the  person 
of  the  physician,  and  which  are  discovered  in  analysis,  make  it 
desirable  that  the  term  "transferences"  given  to  them  by  Freud 
be  retained.  The  designation  "introjection"  would  be  applic- 
able for  all  other  cases  of  the  same  psychical  mechanism. 


54  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

transference  plays  the  greatest,  and  probably  the 
sole  important  part,  only  that  in  these  methods  of 
treatment — as  Freud  rightly  points  out — merely  the 
positive  feelings  towards  the  physician  come  to  ex- 
pression, for  when  unfriendly  transferences  make 
their  appearance  the  patient  leaves  the  "antipathetic 
doctor."  The  positive  transferences,  however,  are 
overlooked  by  the  physician,  who  surmises  nothing, 
and  the  curative  effect  is  attributed  to  the  physical 
measures  or  to  an  obscurely  conceived  idea  of 
"suggestion." 

The  transference  shews  itself  most  clearly  in  treat- 
ment by  hypnotism  and  suggestion,  as  I  shall  try  to 
demonstrate  in  detail  in  the  following  chapter  of  this 
work. 

Since  I  have  known  something  about  transferences, 
the  behaviour  of  the  hysteric  who  after  the  end  of 
a  suggestion  treatment  asked  for  my  photograph,  in 
order — so  she  said — to  be  reminded  of  my  words  by 
looking  at  it,  appears  to  me  in  its  true  light.  She 
simply  wanted  to  have  a  memento  of  me,  as  I  had 
given  so  many  pleasant  quarters  of  an  hour  to  her 
conflict-tortured  soul  by  stroking  her  forehead,  by 
friendly,  gentle  talk,  and  by  letting  her  fancies  have 
free  rein  in  a  darkened  room.  Another  patient,  with 
a  washing  mania,  even  confessed  to  me  once  that  to 
please  a  sympathetic  doctor  she  could  often  suppress 
her  obsessive  act. 


Introjection  and  Transference  55 

These  are  not  exceptional  cases,  but  are  typical, 
and  they  help  to  explain  not  only  the  hypnotism  and 
suggestion  "cures"  of  psychoneurotics,  but  also  all 
the  others  by  means  of  electrotherapy,  mechano- 
therapy,  hydrotherapy  and  massage. 

It  is  not  intended  to  deny  that  more  reasonable 
conditions  of  living  improve  the  nutrition  and  the 
general  sense  of  well-being,  and  in  this  way  can  to 
isome  extent  help  to  subdue  psychoneurotic  symp- 
toms, but  the  main  curative  agency  with  all  these 
methods  of  treatment  is  the  unconscious  transfer- 
ence, in  which  the  disguised  satisfaction  of  libidinous 
tendencies  (in  mechanotherapy  the  vibration,  in 
hydrotherapy  and  massage  the  rubbing  of  the  skin) 
certainly  plays  a  part. 

Freud  summarises  these  considerations  in  the  say- 
ing that  we  may  treat  a  neurotic  any  way  we  like, 
he  always  treats  himself  psychotherapeutically,  that 
is  to  say,  with  transferences.  What  we  describe  as 
introjections  and  other  symptoms  of  the  disease  are 
really — in  Freud's  opinion,  with  which  I  fully  agree 
— self-taught  attempts  on  the  patient's  part  to  cure 
himself.  He  lets  the  same  mechanism  function,  how- 
ever, when  he  meets  a  physician  that  wants  to  cure 
him:  he  tries — as  a  rule  quite  unconsciously — to 
"transfer,"  and  when  this  is  successful  the  improve- 
ment of  the  condition  is  the  result. 

The  plea  may  be  raised  that  when  the  non-analytic 


56  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

methods  of  treatment  follow — although  uncon- 
sciously— the  path  automatically  laid  down  by  the 
sick  mind  they  are  in  the  right.  The  transference 
therapy  would  thus  be,  so  to  speak,  a  natural  way 
of  healing,  psycho-analysis  on  the  other  hand  some- 
thing artificial,  imposed  on  nature.  This  objection 
might  be  irrefutable.  The  patient  does  in  fact 
"heal"  his  mental  conflicts  through  repression,  dis- 
placement, and  transference  of  disagreeable  com- 
plexes ;  unfortunately  what  is  repressed  compensates 
itself  by  creating  "costly  replacement-formations" 
(Freud),  so  that  we  have  to  regard  neuroses  as 
"healing  attempts  that  have  miscarried"  (Freud), 
where  really  "medicina  pejor  morbo."  It  would  be 
very  wrong  to  want  to  imitate  Nature  slavishly  even 
here,  and  to  follow  her  along  a  road  where  in  the 
case  in  question  she  has  shewn  her  incapacity. 
Psycho-analysis  wishes  to  individualise,  while  Nature 
disdains  this;  analysis  aims  at  making  capable  for 
life  and  action  persons  who  have  been  ruined  by  the 
summary  repression-procedure  of  that  Nature  who 
does  not  concern  herself  with  the  weakly  individual 
being.  It  is  not  enough  here  to  displace  the  re- 
pressed complexes  a  little  further  by  the  help  of 
transference  to  the  physician,  to  discharge  a  little 
of  their  affective  tension,  and  so  to  achieve  a  tem- 
porary improvement.  If  one  wants  seriously  to  help 
the  patient  one  must  lead  him  by  means  of  analysis 
to  overcome — opposing  the  unpleasantness-principle 


Introjection  and  Transference  57 

— the  resistances  (Freud)  that  hinder  him  from  gaz- 
ing at  his  own  naked  mental  physiognomy. 

Present-day  neurology,  however,  will  not  hear  of 
complexes,  resistances,  and  introjections,  and  quite 
unconsciously  makes  use  of  a  psychotherapeuttic 
measure  that  in  many  cases  is  really  effective,  namely 
transference;  it  cures,  so  to  speak,  "unconsciously," 
and  even  designates  as  dangerous  the  really  effective 
principle  of  all  methods  of  healing  the  psycho- 
neuroses. 

The  critics  who  look  on  these  transferences  as 
dangerous  should  condemn  the  non-analytic  modes  of 
treatment  more  severely  than  the  psycho-analytic 
method,  since  the  former  really  intensify  the  trans- 
ferences, while  the  latter  strives  to  uncover  and  to 
resolve  them  as  soon  as  possible. 

I  deny,  however,  that  transference  is  harmful,  and 
surmise  rather  that — at  least  in  the  pathology  of 
the  neuroses — the  ancient  belief,  which  strikes  its 
roots  deep  in  the  mind  of  the  people,  will  be  con- 
firmed, that  diseases  are  to  be  cured  by  "sympathy.'* 
Those  who  scornfully  reproach  us  with  explaining 
and  wanting  to  cure  "everything  from  one  point" 
are  still  far  too  much  influenced  by  that  ascetic- 
religious  view  of  life,  with  its  depreciation  of  every- 
thing sexual,  which  for  nearly  two  thousand  years 
has  prevented  the  attainment  of  insight  into  the 
great  significance  that  "sexual  hunger"  has  for  the 
mental  life  of  the  normal  and  pathological. 


68  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

II.    The  Part  played  by  Transference  in  Hypnotism 
and  Suggestion. 

The  Paris  neurological  school  (Charcot's  school) 
regarded  stimuli  acting  peripherally  and  centrally 
on  the  nervous  system  (optical  fixation  of  objects, 
stroking  the  skin  of  the  head,  etc.),  as  the  main  fac- 
tors in  hypnotic  phenomena.  The  Nancy  school 
(Bernheim's  school),  on  the  contrary,  sees  in  these 
and  similar  stimuli  only  vehicles  for  the  "administer- 
ing" of  ideas,  and  in  hypnotism  in  particular  the 
vehicle  for  introducing  the  idea  of  going  to  sleep. 
The  successful  administration  of  the  sleep  idea  is 
then  supposed  to  be  able  to  evoke  a  kind  of  "disso- 
ciation condition  of  the  brain"  in  which  one  is  ac- 
cessible with  special  ease  to  further  suggestions, 
».  e.  hypnosis.  This  was  an  enormous  progress,  the 
first  attempt  at  a  purely  psychological  explanation, 
freed  from  unjustifiable  physiological  phrases,  of  the 
phenomena  of  hypnosis  and  suggestion,  though  even 
this  did  not  quite  satisfy  our  causality  criteria.  It 
was  a  priori  unlikely  that  fixing  the  eye  on  a  shining 
object  could  be  the  main  cause  of  such  radical 
changes  in  the  mental  life  as  those  brought  about  by 
hypnosis.  It  is  not  much  more  plausible,  however, 
to  assume  that  an  idea  "administered"  to  a  waking 
person,  the  idea  of  sleeping,  could  cause  such  changes 
without  the  indispensable  assistance  of  much  more 
potent  psychical  forces.  Everything  speaks  much 


Introjection  and  Transference  59 

more  in  favour  of  the  view  that  in  hypnotism  and 
suggestion  the  chief  work  is  performed  not  by  the 
hypnotist  and  suggestor,  but  by  the  person  himself, 
who  till  now  has  been  looked  upon  merely  as  the 
"object"  of  the  administering  procedure.  The  exist- 
ence of  auto-suggestion  and  auto-hypnosis  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  limits  of  producible  phenomena 
residing  in  the  individuality  of  the  "medium"  on  the 
other  hand,  are  striking  proofs  of  what  a  subordinate 
part  in  the  causality  chain  of  these  phenomena  is 
really  played  by  the  intrusion  of  the  experimental- 
ist. In  spite  of  this  knowledge,  however,  the  condi- 
tions of  the  intrapsychical  elaboration  of  the  sug- 
gestion influence  remained  wrapped  in  obscurity. 

It  was  the  psycho-analytic  investigation  of  ner- 
vous patients  by  Freud's  method  that  first  yielded 
glimpses  into  the  mental  processes  that  go  on  in 
suggestion  and  hypnosis.  Psycho-analysis  allowed 
us  to  establish  with  certainty  the  fact  that  the 
hypnotist  is  relieved  of  the  effort  of  evoking  that 
"dissociation  condition"  (which  effort,  by  the  way, 
he  would  scarcely  be  equal  to),  for  he  finds  dissocia- 
tion ready,  i.  e.  the  existence  of  different  layers  of 
the  mind  by  the  side  of  one  another  (Freud's  "lo- 
calities," "ways  of  working")  also  in  persons  who 
are  awake.  Besides  the  certain  establishment  of  this 
fact,  however,  psycho-analysis  gives  previously  un- 
surmised  information  also  about  the  content  of  the 
ideational  complexes  and  the  direction  of  the  affects 


60  Contributions   to   Psycho- Analysis 

that  go  to  make  up  the  unconscious  layer  of  the 
mind  which  is  operative  during  hypnosis  and  sugges- 
tion. It  has  been  found  that  in  the  "unconscious" 
(in  Freud's  sense)  all  the  impulses  are  pent  up  that 
have  been  repressed  in  the  course  of  the  individual 
cultural  development,  and  that  their  unsatisfied, 
stimulus-hungry  affects  are  constantly  ready  to 
"transfer"  on  to  the  persons  and  objects  of  the 
outer  world,  to  bring  these  unconsciously  into  con- 
nection with  the  ego,  to  "introject."  If  we  now  im- 
agine from  this  aspect  the  psychical  state  of  a  per- 
son to  whom  something  is  to  be  suggested,  we  note 
a  displacement  of  the  earlier  point  of  view,  a  dis- 
placement that  is  of  cardinal  importance.  The 
unconscious  mental  forces  of  the  "medium"  appear  as 
the  real  active  agent,  whereas  the  hypnotist,  pre- 
viously pictured  as  all-powerful,  has  to  content  him- 
self with  the  part  of  an  object  used  by  the  uncon- 
scious of  the  apparently  unresisting  "medium"  ac- 
cording to  the  latter's  individual  and  temporary 
disposition. 

Among  the  psychical  complexes  that,  fixed  in  the 
course  of  childhood,  remain  of  extraordinarily  high 
significance  for  the  whole  fashioning  of  life  later  on, 
the  "parental  complexes"  rank  foremost.  Freud's 
experience  that  these  complexes  furnish  the  basis  for 
the  psychoneurotic  symptoms  of  adults  is  confirmed 
by  all  who  have  seriously  occupied  themselves  with 
these  problems.  My  efforts  to  investigate  analyti- 


Int rejection  and  Transference  61 

cally  the  causes  of  psychosexual  impotence  led  to  the 
conclusion  that  this  condition  also  is  in  a  very  large 
number  of  cases  due  to  "incestuous  fixation"  of  "sex- 
ual hunger"  (Freud),  t.  e.  to  the  formation  of  a  too 
firm — though  quite  unconscious — bond  between  sex- 
ual wishes  and  the  images  of  the  nearest  relatives, 
especially  the  parents ;  this  confirms  similar  observa- 
tions of  Steiner  and  Stekel.  We  owe  to  Jung  15  and 
Abraham  16  a  considerable  enrichment  of  our  knowl- 
edge concerning  the  lasting  after-effect  of  parental 
influences.  The  former  has  shewn  that  psycho- 
neuroses  mostly  arise  from  a  conflict  between  the 
(unconscious)  parental  constellation  and  the  striv- 
ing towards  personal  independence,  and  the  latter 
has  unmasked  as  a  symptom  of  the  same  psychical 
constellation  the  inclination  to  stay  unmarried,  or 
to  marry  near  relatives ;  Sadger  17  also  has  rendered 
service  in  making  these  connections  clear. 

As  psycho-analysts  see  things,  however,  it  may  be 
considered  as  settled  that  there  are  only  quantitative 
differences  between  "normal"  and  "psychoneurotic" 
mental  processes,  and  that  the  results  of  mental  in- 
vestigation of  psychoneurotics  are  also  applicable 
to  the  psychology  of  the  normal.  It  is  thus  a  priori 

15  Jung,  "Die  Bedeutung  des  Vaters  fur  das  Schicksal  des 
einzelnen,"  Jahrb.,  Bd.  1. 

18  Abraham,  "Die  Stellting  der  Verwandtenehen  in  der  Psy- 
chologic der  Neurosen,"  Jahrb.,  Bd.  1. 

17  Sadger,  "Psychiatrisch-Neurologisches  in  psychoanalytischer 
Beleuchtung,"  Zentralbl.  f.  das  Gesamtgebiet  d.  Medizin,  1908, 
Nr.  7  and  8. 


62  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

likely  that  the  suggestions  which  one  person  "gives'* 
to  another  set  into  movement  the  same  complexes  as 
those  seen  to  be  active  in  the  neuroses.  I  have,  how- 
ever, to  lay  stress  on  the  fact  that  in  reality  it  was 
not  this  a  priori  expectation,  but  actual  experiences 
in  psycho-analysis  that  led  me  to  preceive  this. 

Freud  was  the  first  to  notice  how  in  the  analysis 
one  sometimes  meets  with  great  resistances  that  seem 
to  make  the  continuation  of  the  work  impossible,  and 
which  in  fact  check  it  until  one  manages  to  make  per- 
fectly clear  to  the  patient  that  this  counter-striving 
is  a  reaction  to  unconscious  feelings  of  sympathy 
which  really  refer  to  other  persons,  but  which  at  the 
moment  have  been  brought  into  connection  with  the 
personality  of  the  analyst. 

On  other  occasions  one  observes  in  the  patient  an 
enthusiasm  for  the  physician  bordering  on  adoration, 
and  this — like  everything  else — has  to  be  submitted 
to  analysis.  It  turns  out  here  also  that  the  physician 
has  served  as  a  "cover-person"  for  the  indulgence 
of  affects,  mostly  of  a  sexual  nature,  which  really 
refer  to  other  personalities  much  more  signifi- 
cant to  the  patient.  The  analysis  is  very  often, 
however,  disagreeably  disturbed  by  motiveless  hate, 
fear  and  apprehension  in  regard  to  the  physician, 
which  in  the  unconscious  relate  not  to  him,  but  to 
persons  of  whom  the  patient  is  not  at  the  time  think- 
ing. When  now  we  go  through  with  the  patient  the 
list  of  personalities  whom  these  positive  and  negative 


Introjection  and  Transference  68 

affects  concern,  we  often  come  across  in  the  first 
place  some  who  have  played  a  part  in  the  patient's 
immediate  past  (e.  g.  husband  or  sweetheart),  then 
come  undischarged  affects  from  the  period  of  youth 
(friends,  teachers,  hero  fancies),  and  finally  we  ar- 
rive, mostly  after  the  overcoming  of  great  resis- 
tances, at  repressed  thoughts  of  sexuality,  violence, 
and  apprehension  that  relate  to  the  nearest  relatives, 
especially  the  parents.  It  thus  becomes  manifest 
that  the  child  with  its  desire  for  love,  and  the  dread 
that  goes  with  this,  lives  on  literally  in  every  human 
being,  and  that  all  later  loving,  hating,  and  fearing 
are  only  transferences,  or,  as  Freud  terms  them, 
"new  editions"  of  currents  of  feeling  that  were  ac- 
quired in  the  earliest  childhood  (before  the  end  of 
the  fourth  year)  and  later  repressed. 

With  this  knowledge  it  was  not  making  a  too 
venturesome  step  further  to  assume  that  the  curious 
authority  with  which  we  as  hypnotists  dispose  of  all 
the  psychical  and  nervous  forces  of  the  "medium"  is 
nothing  else  but  the  expression  of  repressed,  infantile 
impulses  of  the  hypnotised  person.  I  found  this 
explanation  much  more  satisfying  than  the  assump- 
tion of  a  capacity  on  the  part  of  an  idea  to  provoke 
dissociation,  which  would  make  one  feel  apprehensive 
at  one's  resemblance  to  a  god. 

An  obvious  objection  to  these  considerations  would 
be  that  it  has  long  been  known  how  greatly  sympathy 
and  respect  favour  the  bringing  about  of  a  suggesti- 


64  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

ble  state*,  this  fact  could  not  escape  the  competent 
observers  and  experimenters  in  this  field.  What  has 
not  been  known,  however,  and  what  could  only  be 
known  through  the  help  of  psycho-analysis,  is  first 
that  these  unconscious  affects  play  the  chief  part  in 
bringing  about  the  action  of  suggestion  and  sec- 
ondly that  in  the  last  analysis  they  are  shewn  to  be 
manifestations  of  libidinous  impulses,  which  for  the 
most  part  are  transferred  from  the  ideational  com- 
plexes bearing  on  the  relation  between  parent  and 
child  to  the  relation  between  physician  and  patient. 

That  sympathy  or  antipathy  between  hypnotist 
and  medium  greatly  influences  the  success  of  the  ex- 
periment was  also  previously  recognised.  It  was  not 
known,  however,  that  the  feelings  of  "sympathy" 
and  "antipathy"  are  highly  complex  psychical  or- 
ganisations capable  of  still  further  analysis,  and  of 
dissection  into  their  elements,  by  Freuds'  method. 
When  this  is  done  one  finds  in  them  the  primary,  un- 
conscious, libidinous  impulses  as  the  substratum, 
and  over  this  an  unconscious  and  preconscious 
superstructure. 

In  the  deepest  layers  of  the  mind  the  crude  "un- 
pleasantness-principle" still  rules,  as  at  the  begin- 
ning of  psychical  developments  in  other  words,  the 
impulsion  towards  immediate  motor  satisfaction  of 
"sexual  hunger;"  this  is,  according  to  Freud,  the 
layer,  or  stage,  of  auto-erotism.  This  region  in  the 
stratification  of  the  adult  mind  can  no  longer  as  a 


Intro jection  and  Transference  65 

rule  be  directly  reproduced,  and  has  to  be  inferred 
from  its  symptoms.  What  can  be  reproduced  al- 
ready belongs  for  the  most  part  to  the  layer  (or 
stage)  of  "object-love"  (Freud),  and  the  first  ob- 
jects of  love  are  the  parents. 

Everything  pomts  to  the  conclusion  that  an  un- 
conscious sexual  element  is  at  the  basis  of  every 
sympathetic  emotion,  and  that  when  two  people  meet, 
whether  of  the  same  or  the  opposite  sex,  the  uncon- 
scious always  makes  an  effort  towards  transference. 
("In  the  unconscious  No  does  not  exist."  .  .  .  "The 
unconscious  can  do  nothing  except  wish,"  Freud 
writes.)  When  the  unconscious  succeeds  in  making 
this  transference  acceptable  to  the  conscious  mind, 
whether  it  is  in  a  pure  sexual  (erotic)  or  in  a  subli- 
mated form  (respect,  gratitude,  friendship,  aesthetic 
admiration,  etc.)  a  bond  of  "sympathy"  is  formed 
between  the  two  persons.  When  consciousness  re- 
fuses to  accept  the  positive  unconscious  desire,  then 
we  get,  according  to  the  degree  of  intensity  in  each 
case,  antipathy  of  various  degrees  up  to  loathing.18 

M  That  the  feeling  of  antipathy,  of  disgust,  is  made  up  of 
pleasantness  and  unpleasantness,  of  liking  and  disliking,  I 
found  to  be  especially  well  illustrated  in  a  case  of  paranoiac 
delusion  of  jealousy  occurring  in  a  woman  of  the  educated 
classes;  the  case  was  also  investigated  by  Professor  Freud. 
The  original  cause  of  her  disorder  was  discovered  to  be  in- 
fantile homosexuality,  which  had  been  transferred  from  the 
mother  to  nurses,  later  to  young  friends,  and  which  had  been 
allowed  to  function  extensively.  The  disappointments  of  mar- 
ried life  had  as  a  result  the  flowing  back  of  the  "sexual  hun- 
ger" into  "infantile  channels,"  but  in  the  meantime  this  kind 
«f  sexual  pleasure  had  become  intolerable  to  her.  She  pro- 


66  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

As  a  classical  witness  for  the  reality  of  the  "sexual 
attitude"  towards  all  people  I  might  cite  Freud's  pa- 
tient Dora  (in  the  Bruchstuck  einer  Hysterie- 
analyse).  In  the  course  of  the  analysis,  incomplete 
as  this  was,  it  turned  out  that  her  sexuality  had  not 
remained  indifferent  to  a  single  person  in  her  environ- 
ment. The  husband  and  wife  of  the  family  K,  the 
governess,  the  brother,  the  mother,  the  father:  all 
excited  her  "sexual  hunger."  With  all  this  she  was 
consciously — like  most  neurotics — rather  prudish 
and  negativistic  than  otherwise,  and  had  no  idea  that 
sexual  wishes  were  concealed  behind  her  gushing 
friendships,  her  sympathies  and  antipathies. 

Dora,  however,  is  not  exceptional,  but  typical.  As 
her  analysed  mind  stands  before  us  she  gives  a  true 
picture  of  the  inner  man  in  general,  for  if  we  go 
deep  enough  into  the  mental  life  of  any  human  being 
(whether  "normal"  or  neurotic)  we  can  find  again, 


jected  it,  therefore,  on  to  her  husband  (whom  she  had  pre- 
viously loved),  and  accused  him  of  infidelity.  Curiously  enough 
she  suspected  him  only  in  regard  to  quite  young  females,  twelve 
or  thirteen  years  old,  or  else  elderly  ugly  ones,  mostly  servants, 
whom  she  found  "antipathetic"  or  even  "repulsive."  Wherever 
she  could  admit  her  fondness  to  herself  in  a  sublimated  form 
(aesthetic  liking,  friendship),  «.  g.  with  pretty  women  of  her 
own  class,  she  could  feel  keen  sympathy,  and  she  also  ex- 
pressed no  delusions  in  regard  to  them.  The  fact  that  we  find 
a  mixture  of  sweet  and  bitter  "disgusting"  probably  has 
similar  psychological  causes,  just  as  also  the  idiosyncrasy  to- 
wards food  and  drink  of  a  certain  colour  and  consistence  is  a 
reaction  against  infantile,  repressed  wish-impulses,  mostly  of  a 
coprophilic  and  urophilic  nature.  The  impulse  to  spit  or  vomit 
at  the  sight  of  "disgusting"  things  is  only  the  reaction  to  the 
unconscious  desire  to  take  these  things  into  the  mouth. 


Introjection  and  Transference  67 

apart  from  quantitative  differences,  the  same  phe- 
nomena. 

The  capacity  to  be  hypnotised  and  influenced  by 
suggestion  depends  on  the  possibility  of  transference 
taking  place,  or,  more  openly  expressed,  on  the  posi- 
tive, although  unconscious,  sexual  attitude  that  the 
person  being  hypnotised  adopts  in  regard  to  the 
hypnotist;  the  transference,  however,  like  every  "ob- 
ject-love," has  its  deepest  roots  in  the  repressed 
parental  complexes.19 

Further  circumstantial  evidence  for  the  correct- 
ness of  this  conception  is  obtained  when  one  takes 
into  consideration  practical  experience  concerning 
the  conditions  under  which  a  person  may  be  hypno- 
tised or  made  to  receive  suggestions. 

It  is  striking  how  greatly  the  percentage  for  suc- 
cessful hypnosis  differs  with  individual  authors. 
One  achieves  a  positive  success  in  only  50  per  cent, 
another  in  80-90,  or  even  96  per  cent  of  the  cases. 
According  to  the  unanimous  conviction  of  experi- 
enced hypnotists,  suitability  for  this  profession  pre- 
supposes a  number  of  external,  and  internal  attri- 
butes (really  only  external,  for  the  "internal"  ones 
also  must  manifest  themselves  in  movements  of  ex- 
pression that  can  be  noted  from  without  and  in  the 
nature  and  content  of  speech,  all  of  which  a  the- 

19  Being  convinced  of  the  correctness  of  Berheim's  view,  that 
hypnosis  is  only  a  form  of  suggestion  (suggested  sleep),  I  at- 
tach no  importance  to  the  sharp  differentiation  of  the  two 
terms,  and  often  use  here  the  one  for  both. 


68  Contribution*  to  Psycho- Analysis 

atrical  talent  can  imitate  without  having  any  feeling 
of  conviction).  Hypnosis  is  facilitated  by  an  im- 
posing appearance  on  the  part  of  the  hypnotist; 
one  often  thinks  of  an  "imposing"  man,  further,  as 
having  a  long,  and  if  possible  black  beard  (Sven- 
gali) ;  a  notable  stature,  thick  eyebrows,  a  pene- 
trating glance,  and  a  stern  expression  of  countenance 
— though  one  that  arouses  confidence — can  compen- 
sate for  the  lack  of  these  manly  attributes.  It  is 
generally  recognised  that  a  self-confident  manner, 
the  reputation  of  previous  successes,  the  high  esteem 
attaching  to  a  celebrated  man  of  science,  help  in 
the  successful  effect  of  suggestion,  even  when  em- 
ployed also  by  his  assistants.  Such  effect  is  also 
promoted  by  the  hypnotist  being  of  a  higher  social 
rank.  During  my  military  service  I  witnessed  how 
an  infantryman  instantaneously  fell  asleep  at  his 
lieutenant's  command;  it  was  a  "coup  de  foundre". 
My  first  attempts  at  hypnotism,  undertaken  in  my 
student  days  with  the  apprentices  in  my  father's 
publishing  business,  succeeded  without  exception ; 
later  on  I  had  nothing  like  such  a  high  percentage 
of  successes,  but  then  I  had  lost  the  absolute  self- 
confidence  that  only  ignorance  can  give. 

The  commands  in  hypnosis  must  be  given  with 
such  decision  and  sureness  that  contradiction  should 
appear  to  the  patient  as  quite  impossible.  The 
"being-startled  hypnosis"  may  count  as  a  border- 
land instance  of  this  kind  of  hypnosis,  where  in  ad- 


Introjection  and  Transference  69 

dition  to  a  stern  tone  grimaces  and  clenched  fists 
may  be  of  use.  Being  startled — just  as  at  the  sight 
of  the  Medusa  head — may  be  followed  in  a  predis- 
posed person  by  his  being  paralysed  with  fright,  or 
by  catalepsy. 

There  is  quite  another  method,  however,  for  send- 
ing someone  to  sleep,  the  requisites  being:  a  dark- 
ened room,  absolute  stillness,  gentle,  friendly  ad- 
dress in  a  monotonous,  slightly  melodic  tone  (on 
which  great  stress  is  laid  by  those  experienced  in 
the  matter)  ;  light  stroking  of  the  hair,  forehead, 
and  hands  may  serve  as  adjuvant  measures. 

In  general,  therefore,  it  may  be  said  that  there 
are  two  ways  and  means  at  our  disposal  in  hypno- 
tising, or  giving  suggestion  to,  others,  i.  e.,  in  com- 
pelling them  to  (relatively)  helpless  obedience  and 
blind  belief :  dread  and  love.  The  professional  hyp- 
notists of  the  pre-scientific  era  of  this  therapeutic 
method,  the  real  inventors  of  the  procedures,  seem, 
however,  to  have  chosen  instinctively  with  regard  to 
every  detail,  for  their  purpose  of  sending  to  sleep, 
and  rendering  pliant,  just  those  ways  of  frightening 
and  being  tender,  the  efficacy  of  which  has  been 
proved  for  thousands  of  years  in  the  relations  of 
parent  to  child. 

The  hypnotist  with  the  imposing  exterior,  who 
works  by  frightening  and  startling,  has  certainly  a 
great  similarity  to  the  picture  impressed  on  the  child 
of  the  stern,  all-powerful  father,  to  believe  in,  to 


70  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

obey,  to  imitate  whom,  is  the  highest  ambition  of 
every  child.20  And  the  gentle  stroking  hand,  the 
pleasant,  monotonous  words  that  talk  one  to  sleep: 
are  they  not  a  re-impression  of  scenes  that  may  have 
been  enacted  many  hundred  times  at  the  child's  bed 
by  the  tender  mother,  singing  lullabies  or  telling 
fairy-tales  ? 

I  lay  no  great  stress  on  this  distinction  between 
paternal  and  maternal  hypnosis,  for  it  happens 
often  enough  that  the  father  and  mother  change 
their  parts.  I  only  call  attention  to  the  way  in 
which  the  situation  during  hypnosis  tends  to  favour 
a  conscious  and  unconscious  imaginary  return  to 
childhood,  and  to  awaken  reminiscences,  hidden 
away  in  everyone,  that  date  from  the  time  of  child- 
like obedience. 

The  measures  also  for  sending  to  sleep  that  are 
said  to  work  by  means  of  external  stimulation,  e.  g., 
holding  up  a  shining  object,  laying  a  ticking  watch 
to  the  ear,  are  the  same  that  first  succeeded  in  fas- 
tening the  attention  of  the  child  in  his  cradle,  and  are 
thus  very  effective  means  for  awakening  infantile 
memories  and  feeling-impulses. 

That  customs  and  rituals  preserved  since  child- 
hood also  play  a  large  part  in  the  usual  sponta- 

10  The  giant  motive  that  ever  recurs  in  myths,  sagas,  and 
fairy-tales,  and  the  universal  interest  in  these  colossal  figures, 
has  the  same  infantile  roots,  and  is  a  symptom  of  the  undying 
father-complex.  This  respect  for  "giants"  appears  in  Nietzsche 
in  a  quite  sublimated  form  as  the  demand  for  a  "pathos  of 
distance." 


Introjection  and  Transference  71 

neous  going  to  sleep,  and  that  there  are  auto-sug- 
gestive elements  concerned  in  going  to  sleep,  has 
recently  been  admitted  by  many,  some  of  whom  are 
hostile  to  psycho-analysis.  All  these  considerations 
force  one  to  the  supposition  that  a  preliminary  con- 
dition of  every  successful  suggestion  (hypnosis)  is 
that  the  hypnotist  shall  figure  as  "grown  up"  to  the 
hypnotised  subject;  i.  e.  the  former  must  be  able  to 
arouse  in  the  latter  the  same  feelings  of  love  or  fear, 
the  same  conviction  of  infallibility,  as  those  with 
which  his  parents  inspired  him  as  a  child. 

To  avoid  any  misunderstanding  it  must  be  pointed 
out  with  emphasis  that  not  only  is  suggestibility 
(i.  e.  receptivity  for  ideas,  with  the  inclination  to 
blind  belief  and  obedience,)  here  conceived  as  being 
genectically  connected  with  analogous  psychical  pe- 
culiarities of  childhood,  but,  further,  it  is  our  opinion 
that  in  hypnosis  and  suggestion  "the  child  that  is 
dormant  in  the  unconscious  of  the  adult"  (Freud) 
is,  so  to  speak,  re-awakened.  The  existence  of  this 
second  personality  betrays  itself  not  only  in  hyp- 
nosis; it  is  manifested  at  night  in  all  our  dreams, 
which — as  we  know  since  Freud's  work — have  always 
to  do  with  childhood  reminiscences,  and  by  day  we 
discover  the  infantile  tendencies  and  modes  of  func- 
tioning of  our  mind  in  certain  "erroneous  perform- 
ances" 21  and  in  all  expressions  of  wit.22  In  our 

n  Freud.     Zur    Psychopathologie    des    Alltagslebens. 
M  Freud.     Der  Witz  und  seine  Beziehungen   zum  Unbewus- 
Sten. 


72  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analyait 

innermost  soul  we  are  still  children,  and  we  remain 
so  throughout  life.  Grattez  VaduLte  et  vosu,  y  trour 
verez  Venfant. 

Whoever  wants  properly  to  appreciate  this  way 
of  looking  at  things  has,  of  course,  fundamentally 
to  change  his  accustomed  views  about  "forgetting." 
Analytical  experience  convinces  us  more  and  more 
that  a  forgetting,  a  disappearing  without  leaving  a 
trace,  occurs  as  little  in  the  mental  life  as  does  an 
annihilation  of  energy  or  matter  in  the  physical 
world.  Psychical  processes  seem  to  possess  a  very 
great  capacity  for  persistence  and,  even  after  being 
forgotten  for  decades,  can  be  revived  as  unchanged, 
related  complexes,  or  can  be  reconstructed  from  their 
elements. 

A  favourable  opportunity  puts  me  in  a  position  to 
support,  by  psycho-analytical  experiences  with  pa- 
tients that  I  had  previously  hypnotised,  the  view 
that  unconditional  subordination  to  an  external  will 
is  to  be  explained  as  simply  the  unconscious  trans- 
ference to  the  physician  of  affects  (love,  respect) 
originating  in  childhood,  and  erotically  tinged. 

1.  Five  years  ago  I  successfully  hypnotised  a 
patient  who  had  fallen  ill  with  an  anxiety-hysteria 
after  the  proved  infidelity  of  her  fiance.  About  six 
months  ago,  after  the  death  of  a  nephew  she  had 
been  fond  of,  she  came  to  me  with  a  recurrence  of 
her  suffering,  and  was  submitted  to  psycho-analysis. 
The  characteristic  signs  of  transference  soon  shewed 


Introduction  and  Transference  78 

themselves,  and  when  I  pointed  them  out  to  the 
patient  she  supplemented  my  observations  with  the 
confession  that  already  on  the  previous  occasion, 
during  the  hypnotic  treatment,  she  had  indulged  in 
conscious  erotic  phantasies  concerning  the  physician 
and  had  followed  my  suggestions  "out  of  love." 

The  analysis,  therefore,  discloses,  as  Freud  says, 
the  transference  that  created  the  hypnosis.  It  thus 
seems  that  I  had  formerly  cured  the  patient  in 
hypnosis  through  offering  her,  in  my  friendliness, 
sympathy  and  words  of  consolation,  a  replacement 
for  the  unhappy  love-affair  that  evoked  her  first 
illness.  The  inclination  to  the  faithless  lover  was 
itself  only  a  surrogate  for  the  love  of  an  elder  sis- 
ter, lost  through  the  latter's  marriage,  with  whom 
she  had  lived  in  childhood  in  the  closest  intimacy, 
indulging  for  years  in  mutual  masturbation.  Her 
greatest  grief,  however,  had  been  an  early  estrange- 
ment from  her  mother,  who  before  then  used  to 
idolise  and  pamper  her  to  an  incredible  extent,  and 
indeed  all  her  later  essays  at  loving  seemed  to  have 
been  only  surrogates  of  this  first,  infantile,  but 
thoroughly  erotic  inclination  to  the  mother.  After 
the  end  of  the  hypnotic  treatment  her  "sexual  hun- 
ger," in  a  way  that  was  quite  sublimated,  but  which 
in  the  analysis  proved  to  be  erotic,  seized  on  a 
little  eight-year-old  nephew,  whose  sudden  death 
evoked  the  recurrence  of  the  hysterical  symptoms. 
The  hypnotic  docility  was  here  the  result  of  the 


74  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

transference,  and  the  original  love-object,  never  i\i\\y 
replaced,  was  with  my  patient  undoubtedly  the 
mother. 

n.  An  official,  aged  twenty-eight,  came  to  me  for 
the  first  time  about  two  years  ago  with  a  severe 
anxiety-hysteria.  I  was  already  occupied  with 
psycho-analysis,  but  for  external  reasons  decided  on 
hypnotism,  and  achieved  with  simple  talking 
("mother-hypnosis")  a  splendid  temporary  improve- 
ment in  his  emotional  state.  The  patient  soon  re- 
turned, however,  with  a  recurrence  of  the  anxiety, 
and  I  repeated  the  hypnosis  from  time  to  time  with 
the  same,  but  always  only  a  passing,  success.  As  I 
finally  decided  on  analysis  I  had  the  greatest  diffi- 
culties with  the  transference,  certainly  increased 
through  the  hypnoses.  These  difficulties  were  only 
resolved  when  it  became  evident  that  he  had  identified 
me  with  his  "dear  mother,"  on  the  ground  of  super- 
ficial analogies.  As  a  child  he  had  felt  himself 
drawn  to  the  mother  in  an  extraordinary  degree,  her 
caresses  were  a  necessity  to  him,  and  he  also  admit- 
ted having  experienced  at  that  time  great  curiosity 
concerning  the  sexual  relations  of  the  parents;  he 
was  jealous  of  his  father,  fancied  himself  playing 
the  father's  part,  and  so  on.  For  a  time  the  analysis 
passed  off  quite  smoothly,  but  when  I  once  dismissed 
a  remark  of  his  a  little  impatiently  he  got  a  severe 
anxiety  attack,  and  the  course  of  the  analysis  began 
to  be  disturbed.  After  we  had  finally  talked  over 


Introjection  and  Transference  75 

the  incident  that  had  excited  him,  the  analysis  went 
deeper  into  the  memories  of  similar  occurrences,  and 
now — after  despatching  friendships  tinged  with 
homosexuality  and  masochism,  and  painful  scenes 
with  teachers  and  seniors — the  father-complex  ap- 
peared. He  saw  in  front  of  him  in  the  flesh  the 
"frightful,  grimacing,  puckered  countenance  of  his 
wrathful  father,"  and  he  trembled  at  it  like  an  aspen 
leaf.  At  the  same  time,  however,  a  flood  of  memories 
also  came  that  shewed  how  fond  he  was  of  his  father, 
and  how  proud  of  the  latter's  strength  and  size. 

These  are  only  episodes  in  the  analysis  of  a  com- 
plicated case,  but  they  shew  clearly  that  with  the 
hypnosis  it  was  only  his  mother-complex,  of  which 
he  was  then  still  unaware,  that  enabled  me  to  in- 
fluence his  condition.  In  this  case,  however,  I 
should  probably  have  been  able  to  achieve  just 
the  same  success  with  the  other  method  of  sugges- 
tion :  intimidating,  impressing,  i.  e.  appealing  to  the 
father-complex. 

m.  The  third  case  that  I  can  bring  forward  is 
that  of  a  tailor,  aged  twenty-six,  who  came  for  help 
on  account  of  epileptic  attacks,  which,  however,  I 
considered  were  hysterical  after  hearing  the  descrip- 
tion of  them.  His  forlorn,  submissive,  and  resigned 
appearance  absolutely  cried  out  for  suggestion,  and 
in  fact  he  obeyed  all  my  commands  like  a  tractable 
child;  he  developed  anaesthesias,  paralyses,  etc., 
quite  at  my  will.  I  did  not  omit  to  carry  out  an 


76  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analyst 

analysis  of  his  condition,  although  an  incomplete  one. 
In  this  I  found  that  for  years  he  had  been  somnambu 
listic;  he  used  to  get  up  at  night,  sit  at  a  sewing 
machine,  and  work  at  an  hallucinated  material  until 
he  was  waked.  This  "impulsive"  occupation  dated 
from  the  time  when  he  was  an  apprentice  to  a  strict 
master-tailor,  who  often  hit  him,  and  whose  high 
demands  he  had  tried  to  satisfy  at  any  cost.  This 
was  of  course  only  a  cover-memory  for  his  respected 
and  feared  father.  His  present  attacks  also  began 
with  an  impulse  to  occupation.  He  believed  he  heard 
an  inner  voice  saying  "Get  up,"  and  then  he  would 
sit  up,  take  off  his  night-shirt,  and  make  sewing 
movements,  which  ended  in  general  convulsions ;  he 
could  not  recall  afterwards  the  motor  phenomena, 
knowing  of  them  only  from  his  wife.  His  father 
had  called  him  every  morning  with  the  cry  "Get  up," 
and  the  poor  fellow  seemed  still  to  be  always  carry- 
ing out  commands  that  he  had  received  as  a  child 
from  his  father  and  as  an  apprentice  from  his  chief. 
Freud  writes  23  "These  subsequent  effects  of  orders 
and  threats  in  childhood  may  be  observed  in  cases 
where  the  interval  is  as  great  or  greater  than  here 
(11/4  decades);"  he  terms  this  occurrence  "subse- 
quent obedience." 

I  surmise  now  that  this  kind  of  "subsequentness" 
in  the  psychoneuroses  in  general  has  much  in  com- 
mon with  the  post-hypnotic  command- automatisms. 

»  Freud.    Jahrb.  Bd.,  I.,  S.  23. 


Intro jection  cmd  Transference  77 

In  both  cases  actions  are  performed  the  motives  of 
which  cannot  be  explained,  or  only  inadequately, 
since  the  patient  is  following  out  with  them  either 
(in  the  neurosis)  a  command  repressed  long  ago 
or  (in  the  hypnosis)  a  suggestion  concerning  which 
amnesia  has  been  induced. 

That  children  should  willingly,  and  indeed  cheer- 
fully, obey  their  parents  is  really  not  at  all  obvious. 
One  might  have  expected  that  the  demands  made 
by  parents  on  the  behaviour  and  conduct  of  children 
would  be  felt  to  be  an  external  compulsion,  and  as 
something  unpleasant.  This  is  really  the  case  in  the 
very  first  years  of  life,  so  long  as  the  child  knows 
only  auto-erotic  satisfactions,  but  with  the  begin- 
ning of  "object-love"  it  becomes  different.  The 
loved  objects  are  introjected,  taken  into  the  ego. 
The  child  loves  his  parents,  that  is  to  say,  he  iden- 
tifies himself  with  them  in  thought.  Usually  one 
identifies  oneself  as  a  child  with  the  parent  of  the 
same  sex,  and  fancies  oneself  into  all  his  situations. 
Under  such  circumstances  obedience  is  not  unpleas- 
ant; the  expressions  of  the  all-powerfulness  of  the 
father  even  flatter  the  boy,  who  in  his  fancy  em- 
bodies in  himself  all  the  power  of  the  father,  and 
only  obeys  himself,  so  to  speak,  when  he  bows  to 
his  father's  will.  This  willing  obedience  obviously 
only  goes  to  a  certain  limit,  varying  with  the  in- 
dividual; if  this  is  overstepped  by  the  parents  in 
their  demands,  if  the  bitter  pill  of  compulsion  is  not 


78  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

sugared  with  love,  a  precocious  severing  of  tne 
•'sexual  hunger"  from  the  parents  results,  and  gen- 
erally there  is  an  important  disturbance  of  psy- 
chical development,  as  especially  Jung  has  estab- 
lished (in  his  work  on  the  part  played  by  the  father). 

In  Mereschkovszky's  charming  book,  "Peter  der 
Grosse  und  Alexei"  (1905)  the  relationship  is  very 
characteristically  depicted  between  a  cruel,  tyran- 
nical father,  who  regrets  every  impulse  of  sentiment, 
and  the  son,  helplessly  submissive  to  him,  who 
through  his  father-complex,  compounded  of  love  and 
hate,  is  incapable  of  energetic  revolt.  The  poetic  his- 
torian makes  the  picture  of  the  father  appear  very 
often  in  the  reveries  of  the  Crown  Prince.  At  one 
time  he  sees  himself  as  a  little  child,  with  his  father 
before  his  cot.  "He  stretches  out  his  arms  to  his 
father  with  a  fond,  sleepy  smile,  and  cries  out  "Papa, 
Papa,  my  darling.'  Then  he  jumps  up  and  flings 
himself  round  his  father's  neck.  Peter  embraces 
him  so  tightly  as  to  hurt  the  child,  presses  him  to 
himself,  kisses  his  face,  his  neck,  his  bare  legs,  and 
his  whole  warm,  sleepy  body."  The  Czar,  however, 
had  later  used  frightfully  stern  educational  measures 
when  his  son  was  growing  up.  His  pedagogy  cul- 
minated in  the  following  (historical)  sentence:  "Give 
the  boy  no  power  when  he  is  young;  break  his  ribs 
so  long  as  he  is  growing;  when  you  hit  him  with  a 
stick,  he  won't  die,  but  will  only  get  stronger." 

And   in   spite   of   all   this   the   Czarevitch's   face 


Intro jection  and  Transference  79 

glowed  with  bashful  joy  when  he  "gazed  at  the  fa- 
miliar, horrible  and  dear  face,  with  the  full,  almost 
bloated  cheeks,  with  the  curled,  pointed  moustache 
.  .  .  with  the  cordial  smile  on  the  dainty,  almost 
womanly  tender  lips ;  he  looked  into  the  large,  dark, 
clear  eyes,  which  were  as  frightful  as  they  were 
gentle,  and  of  which  he  had  once  dreamed  as  does  a 
youth  in  love  of  a  beautiful  woman's  eyes;  he  took 
in  the  odour  known  to  him  from  childhood,  a  mixture 
of  strong  tobacco,  spirits,  sweat,  and  another, 
strong,  but  not  unpleasant  smell  of  the  barracks, 
one  that  pervaded  his  father's  working-rooms  and 
office;  he  felt  the  touch,  also  known  to  him  from 
childhood,  of  the  not  very  smoothly  shaven  chin 
with  the  little  cleft  in  the  middle  that  formed  such 
a  curious  exception,  almost  comical,  in  the  gloomy 
countenance."  Such  descriptions  of  the  father,  or 
similar  ones,  are  in  psycho-analysis  typical.  The 
author  wants  to  make  us  understand  through  this 
characterisation  of  the  bond  between  father  and  son 
how  it  came  about  that  the  Crown  Prince  in  his  safe 
Italian  hiding-place  gave  up  all  resistance  on  getting 
a  letter  from  his  father  calling  him  back,  and  help- 
lessly yielded  himself  to  that  cruel  being  (who  then 
whipped  him  to  death  with  his  own  hands).  The 
Czarevitch's  suggestibility  is  here  quite  correctly 
ascribed  to  his  strongly  marked  father-complex. 
Mereschovszky  seems  likewise  to  have  divined  "trans- 
ferences" when  he  writes:  "He  (the  Czarevitch) 


80  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

transferred  on  to  the  priestly  father  (the  confessor 
Jacob  Ignatiew)  all  the  love  that  he  could  not  be- 
stow on  his  actual  father.  It  was  a  jealous,  tender, 
passionate  friendship,  as  though  between  lovers." 

The  feeling  of  awe  for  the  parents,  and  the  tend- 
ency to  obey  them,  normally  disappear  as  the  child 
grows  up,  but  the  need  to  be  subject  to  someone  re- 
mains; only  the  part  of  the  father  is  transferred 
to  teachers,  superiors,  impressive  personalities ;  the 
submissive  loyalty  to  rulers  that  is  so  wide-spread 
is  also  a  transference  of  this  sort.  In  Alexei's  case  the 
father-complex  could  not  fade  even  when  he  grew 
up,  for  his  father  really  was  the  terrible  and  mighty 
despot  that  in  childhood  we  think  our  fathers  to  be. 

That  the  union  in  the  father's  person  of  parental 
power  with  the  dignity  attaching  to  a  respected 
position  can  fix  immovably  any  incestuous  inclination 
I  was  able  to  observe  with  two  female  patients  who 
were  pupils  of  their  own  father.  Passionate  trans- 
ference in  the  one  and  neurotic  negativism  in  the 
other  caused  almost  insuperable  difficulties  for  the 
psycho-analysis.  The  limitless  obedience  in  the  one 
case  and  the  defiant  rejection  of  all  medical  efforts 
in  the  other  were  both  determined  by  the  same 
psychical  complexes,  by  the  fusion  of  the  father  and 
teacher  complexes. 

These  striking  cases,  as  well  as  all  the  other  ob- 
servations brought  forward  above,  confirm  Freud's 
view  that  the  hypnotic  credulity  and  pliancy  take 


Int rejection  and  Transference  81 

their  root  in  the  masochistic  component  of  the  sexual 
mstinct.24  Masochism,  however,  is  pleasurably  obey- 
ing, and  this  one  learns  in  childhood  from  one's 
parents. 

In  the  case  of  the  timid  and  obedient  tailor  we 
saw  how  the  parental  commands  go  on  acting  long 
after  the  years  of  childhood,  in  the  manner  of  a 
post-hypnotic  suggestion.  I  have  also  been  able 
to  demonstrate  the  neurotic  analogy  to  the  so- 
called  "dated  suggestions"  (suggestion  a  echeance) 
in  a  case  of  morbid  anxiety  (the  twenty-eight  year 
old  official  mentioned  above).  He  got  ill  on  a 
quite  trivial  ground,  and  it  was  striking  that  he 
had  familiarised  himself  rather  too  readily  with  the 
thought  of  retiring  on  his  pension  at  such  an  early 
age.  The  analysis  brought  out  that  he  had  entered 
on  this  career  exactly  ten  years  before  the  illness, 
and  very  unwillingly,  for  he  considered  himself  to 
have  artistic  gifts.  At  that  time  he  had  only  yielded 
to  the  pressure  brought  to  bear  by  his  father,  mak- 
ing up  his  mind,  however,  to  get  himself  pensioned 
under  the  pretext  of  illness  the  moment  he  had  served 
the  time  (ten  years)  that  entitled  him  to  a  pension; 
(the  inclination  to  malingering  dated  from  childhood, 
when  he  had  obtained  in  this  way  much  tenderness 
from  his  mother  and  some  consideration  from  his 
father).  In  the  meantime,  however,  he  completely 

"  Freud.  Drei  Abhandlungen  zur  Sexualtheorie,  S.  18. 
Anm.  2. 


82  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

forgot  his  resolve ;  he  got  a  rather  better  income,  and, 
although  the  conflict  continued  between  his  antipathy 
toward  his  office  work  and  his  preference  for  his  ar- 
tistic activities — which  he  had  successfully  pursued 
in  the  meanwhile, — the  pusillanimity  that  had  been 
instilled  into  him  prevented  him  from  even  thinking 
of  giving  up  a  part  of  his  income,  a  loss  which  his 
retirement  would  have  entailed.  The  plan  resolved 
on  ten  years  ago  seems  to  have  lain  dormant  in  his 
unconscious  throughout  the  whole  time,  to  have 
become  mature  after  the  given  interval  had  elapsed, 
and  to  have  cooperated  "auto-suggestively,"  so  to 
speak,  as  one  of  the  evoking  causes  of  his  neurosis. 
The  fact,  however,  that  the  idea  of  dates  and  periods 
of  time  was  able  to  play  such  a  significant  part  in 
the  life  of  this  patient  was  at  bottom  a  symptom  of 
unconscious  phantasies  connected  with  infantile  pon- 
derings  on  the  menstruation  and  gravidity  time 
periods  with  his  mother,  and,  amongst  others,  on  the 
idea  of  his  own  situation  in  the  womb  and  at  birth.25 
This  case — like  all  others — confirms  Jung's  state- 
ment that  "the  magic  binding  children  to  their  par- 
ents" is  really  "the  sexuality  on  both  sides." 

"The  unconscious  birth-fancy  was  the  final  explanation  of 
the  following  lines  that  he  wrote  in  his  diary  during  an  anxiety 
attack,  and  which  turned  out  to  possess  symbolic  meaning: 
"Hypochondria  surrounds  my  soul  like  a  fine  mist,  or  rather 
like  a  cobweb,  just  as  a  fungus  covers  a  swamp.  I  have 
the  feeling  as  though  I  were  sticking  in  a  bog,  as  though  I 
had  to  stretch  out  my  head  so  as  to  be  able  to  breathe.  I 
want  to  tear  the  cobweb,  to  tear  it.  But  no,  I  can't  do  it! 
The  web  is  fastened  somewhere — the  props  would  have  to  be 


Introjection  and  Transference  83 

Such  far-reaching  points  of  agreement  between 
the  mechanism  of  the  psychoneuroses  revealed  analyt- 
ically and  the  phenomena  that  can  be  produced  by 
means  of  hypnosis  and  suggestion  absolutely  compel 
us  to  revise  the  judgment  that  has  been  passed  in 
scientific  circles  on  Charcot's  conception  of  hypnosis 
as  "artificial  hysteria."  Many  scientists  believe  they 
have  already  reduced  this  idea  to  absurdity  in  that 
they  are  able  to  hypnotise  ninety  per  cent  of  healthy 
people,  considering  such  an  extension  of  the  "hys- 
teria" concept  as  unthinkable.  Psycho-analysis  has 
led,  nevertheless,  to  the  discovery  that  healthy  people 
fight  with  the  same  complexes  as  those  from  which 
the  neurotic  fall  ill  (Jung),  that  thus  some  hysterical 
predisposition  exists  in  every  human  being,  which 
can  also  manifest  itself  under  unfavourable  cir- 
cumstances that  inflict  an  undue  burden  on  the  mind. 
The  fact  that  so  many  normal  people  may  be  hypno- 
tised can  by  no  means  be  taken  as  an  irrefragible 
proof  of  the  impossibility  of  Charcot's  conception. 
If,  however,  one  is  once  free  from  this  prejudice,  and 
compares  the  pathological  manifestations  of  the 
psychoneuroses  with  the  phenomena  of  hypnosis  and 
suggestion,  one  becomes  convinced  that  the  hypnotist 
can  really  shew  nothing  more,  and  nothing  else,  than 

pulled  out  on  which  it  hangs.  If  that  can't  be  done,  one 
would  have  slowly  to  work  one's  way  through  the  net  in  order 
to  get  air.  Man  surely  is  not  here  to  be  veiled  in  such  a  cob- 
web, suffocated,  and  robbed  of  the  light  of  the  sun."  All  these 
feelings  and  thoughts  were  symbolic  representations  of  phan- 
tasies concerning  intra-uterine  and  birth  events. 


84  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

that  which  the  neurosis  spontaneously  produces :  the 
same  psychical,  the  same  paralysis  and  stimulation 
phenomena.  The  impression  of  a  far-reaching  anal- 
ogy between  hypnosis  and  neurosis  becomes  strength- 
ened to  the  point  of  a  conviction  of  their  inherent 
sameness  as  soon  as  one  reflects  that  in  both  states 
unconscious  ideational  complexes  determine  the  phe- 
nomena, and  that  among  these  ideational  complexes 
in  both  cases  the  infantile  and  sexual,  especially  those 
concerned  with  the  parents,  play  the  greatest  part. 
It  will  be  the  task  of  future  investigations  to  see  if 
these  points  of  agreement  extend  to  the  details  as 
well;  our  experience  up  to  the  present  justifies  the 
expectation  that  this  will  be  shewn  to  be  the  case. 

The  certainty  of  this  expectation  is  essentially  sup- 
ported by  the  undeniable  existence  of  the  so-called 
auto-hypnoses  and  auto-suggestion.  These  are  states 
in  which  unconscious  ideas,  without  any  intended 
external  influence,  bring  about  all  the  neuro-pyschic 
phenomena  of  deliberate  suggestion  and  hypnosis. 
It  is  perhaps  not  too  daring  to  assume  that  a  far- 
reaching  analogy  must  exist  between  the  psychical 
mechanism  of  these  auto-suggestions  and  that  of 
psychoneurotic  symptoms,  which  after  all  are  the 
realisations  of  unconscious  ideas.  This  relationship, 
however,  must  be  assumed  with  just  the  same  right 
between  neurosis  and  foreign  suggestion,  since  ac- 
cording to  our  conception  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  "hypnotising,"  a  "giving  of  ideas"  in  the  sense  of 


Int rejection  and  Transference  85 

psychical  incorporating  of  something  quite  foreign 
from  without,  but  only  procedures  that  are  able  to 
set  going  unconscious,  pre-existing,  auto-suggestive 
mechanisms.  The  activity  of  the  person  suggesting 
may  then  be  very  well  compared  with  the  action  of 
the  evoking  cause  of  a  psychoneurosis.  We  do  not, 
of  course,  mean  to  deny  that,  in  addition  to  this 
extensive  resemblance,  there  may  also  exist  differ- 
ences between  being  neurotic  and  being  hypnotised; 
to  make  these  differences  clear  is  indeed  an  important 
task  for  the  future.  I  only  wanted  here  to  point  out 
that  the  high  percentage  of  normal  people  that  may 
be  hypnotised  can,  according  to  the  experience 
gamed  by  psycho-analysis,  be  cited  as  an  argument 
rather  for  the  universality  of  the  predisposition  to 
suffer  from  a  psychoneurosis  than  against  the  essen- 
tial sameness  of  hypnosis  and  neurosis. 

Even  after  this  discussion,  which  must  at  first 
produce  a  displeasing  impression  from  its  very  nov- 
elty, the  statement  will  probably  sound  paradoxical, 
that  the  resistance  against  being  hypnotised  or  af- 
fected by  suggestion  is  a  reaction  to  the  same  psy- 
chical complexes  that  in  other  cases  make  trans- 
ference, hypnosis,  or  suggestion  possible;  and  yet 
Freud  divined  this  already  in  his  first  work  on 
psycho-analytic  technique,26  and  was  able  to 
strengthen  it  by  means  of  examples. 

*  Freud,  "Zur  Psychotherapie  der  Hysteric,"  IV  Abschnitt  in 
Breuer  und  Freud,  Studien  iiber  Hysteric,  1895. 


86  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysit 

According  to  Freud's  conception,  which  later  ex- 
perience has  confirmed  in  all  respects,  an  inability  to 
be  hypnotised  signifies  an  unconscious  refusal  to  be 
hypnotised.  The  fact  that  many  neurotics  cannot 
be  hypnotised,  or  only  with  difficulty,  is  very  often 
due  to  their  not  really  wanting  to  be  cured.  They 
have,  so  to  speak,  come  to  terms  with  their  suffer- 
ing, since  it  yields  them  libidinous  pleasure  27,  al- 
though by  a  highly  unpractical  and  costly  route, 
still  without  self-reproach,  and  frequently  also 
brings  other  considerable  advantages  (termed  by 
Freud  "the  secondary  function  of  the  neuroses"). 

The  cause  of  a  second  kind  of  resistance  lies  in. 
the  relations  between  the  hypnotist  and  the  person 
to  be  hypnotised,  in  the  "antipathy"  to  the  physi- 
cian. It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  this 
obstacle  also  is  mostly  created  by  the  unconscious 
infantile  complexes. 

It  may  be  assumed  with  considerable  probability 
that  the  other  resistances  which  can  be  demonstrated 
in  the  psycho-analytic  treatment  of  patients  simi- 
larly exert  influence  in  attempts  at  hypnosis  and 
suggestion.  There  are  some  sympathies  that  are  un- 
endurable. The  reason  for  hypnosis  miscarrying  is 
in  many  cases,  as  Freud  has  shewn,  the  fear  "of 
getting  too  used  to  the  physician's  personality,  of 
losing  one's  independence  in  regard  to  him,  or 

"Freud,  Kleine  Schriften,  Bd.  II,  1909,  S.  142:  "The  hys- 
terical symptom  serves  sexual  gratification  and  represents  a 
part  of  the  person's  sexual  life." 


Intro jection  and  Transference  87 

even  of  becoming  sexually  dependent  on  him."  That 
with  one  patient  an  unrestrained  inclination  to  trans- 
ference comes  to  expression,  in  another  a  flight  from 
every  idea  of  external  influence,  can  ultimately,  I 
believe,  be  similarly  traced  to  the  parental  complex, 
and  especially  to  the  way  in  which  the  "sexual 
hunger"  became  detached  from  the  parents.28 

IV.  Not  long  ago  a  patient  aged  thirty-three,  the 
wife  of  a  land-proprietor,  consulted  me:  her  case 
may  serve  to  illustrate  these  resistances.  Her  hus- 
band was  several  times  awakened  in  the  middle  of 
the  night  by  her  moaning,  and  saw  her  restlessly 
turning  about  in  every  direction ;  "she  was  making 
sounds  as  if  something  that  she  was  vainly  trying 
to  swallow  was  sticking  in  her  throat"  ran  the  hus- 
band's description.  Finally,  choking  and  straining 
movements  came  on,  at  which  the  patient  would  wake 
up,  calmly  going  to  sleep  again  soon  after.  The 
patient  was  the  absolute  opposite  of  a  "good  me- 
dium." She  was  one  of  those  refractory  persons 
who  are  always  lying  in  wait  for  inconsistencies  in 
the  physician's  remarks,  who  are  very  particular 
about  everything  he  does  and  says,  and  who  alto- 
gether behave  in  a  very  stubborn  and  almost  nega- 
tivistic  manner.  Sharpened  by  bad  experiences  with 

**  Infantile    (incestuous)   fixation  and  capacity  for  transfer- 
ence seem  in  fact  to  be  reciprocal  quantities.     Every  psycho- 
analyst can  entirely  confirm  Jung's  observations  on  this  point,  , 
but  I  believe  that  this  sentence  is  also  valid  for  the  form  of 
affective  transference  that  we  call  suggestion. 


88  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

such  patients,  I  did  not  even  make  any  attempt  at 
hypnosis  or  suggestion,  but  immediately  undertook 
an  analysis.  To  describe  the  winding  ways  by  which 
I  arrived  at  the  solution  of  her  symptom-complex 
would  lead  me  too  far  from  the  subject.  In  the  pres- 
ent connection  I  will  confine  myself  to  the  explana- 
tion of  her  stubborn  behaviour,  which  shewed 
to  me  especially  at  the  beginning  of  the  analysis, 
and  long  before  that — on  the  most  trivial  occasions 
—to  her  husband,  with  whom  she  often  exchanged 
not  a  word  for  days.  Her  illness  came  on  after  a 
social  gathering,  at  which  she  had  interpreted  as 
insulting  the  behaviour  of  an  older  lady  when  the 
latter  wanted  to  reproach  her  with  improperly  tak- 
ing the  first  place  at  the  table.  The  appearance  of 
inadequacy  in  her  feeling-reaction,  however,  disap- 
peared as  the  analysis  progressed.  When  she  was 
a  young  girl  she  had  really  improperly  taken  the 
first  place  at  table  for  a  short  time  at  home,  after 
her  mother's  death.  The  father  had  been  left  with 
a  number  of  children,  and  after  the  burial  a  touch- 
ing scene  took  place  between  him  and  his  daughter; 
he  promised  never  to  marry  again,  at  which  she  gave 
her  solemn  word  not  to  marry  for  ten  years,  and  to 
take  her  mother's  place  with  the  poor  orphans.  It 
happened  otherwise,  however.  Scarcely  a  year  had 
passed  before  her  father  began  to  insinuate  that  she 
ought  to  get  married.  She  guessed  what  that  meant, 
and  obstinately  kept  every  suitor  at  a  distance. 


Intro jection  amd  Transference  89 

True  enough,  the  father  soon  after  took  a  young 
wife,  and  a  bitter  fight  began  between  the  daughter, 
who  was  displaced  from  every  position,  and  her 
step-mother ;  in  this  fight  the  father  openly  took  sides 
against  the  daughter,  and  the  only  weapon  against 
them  both  that  remained  to  her  was  stubbornness, 
which  she  used  to  the  best  of  her  powers.  Up  to 
this  point  the  whole  thing  sounded  like  a  touching 
story  of  the  wicked  step-mother  and  the  faithless 
father;  but  soon  came  the  turn  of  the  "infantile" 
and  the  "sexual."  As  sign  of  a  beginning  transfer- 
ence I  began  to  play  a  part  in  her  dreams,  and  curi- 
ously enough  in  the  not  very  flattering  figure  of  a 
composite  person  put  together  of  myself  and — a 
horse.  The  association  to  "horse"  led  to  disagree- 
able topics ;  she  recollected  being  taken  by  her 
nurse  as  a  quite  small  child  to  a  stud-farm  in  the 
barracks,  and  seeing  many  horses  there  (also  copu- 
lation scenes  between  stallion  and  mare).  She  con- 
fessed further  that  when  she  was  a  girl  she  had  been 
unusually  interested  in  the  size  of  the  male  genitals, 
and  that  she  had  been  disappointed  at  the  relative 
smallness  of  this  organ  in  her  husband,  with  whom 
she  remained  frigid.  Even  as  a  girl  she  persuaded  a 
friend  to  agree  that  they  would  measure  the  dimen- 
sions of  their  future  husbands'  genital  organs  and 
tell  each  other.  She  kept  her  promise,  but  the  friend 
didn't. 

The  strange  circumstance  that  in  one  dream  the 


90  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

horse  appeared  in  a  night-shirt  led  to  the  reproduc- 
tion of  much  older  childhood  memories,  among  which, 
as  is  often  the  case,  the  overhearing  of  sexual  acts 
between  the  parents,  and  especially  the  observation 
of  the  father's  micturition,  were  the  most  important. 
She  remembered  now  how  often  she  used  to  fancy 
herself  in  her  mother's  place,  how  fond  she  used  to 
be  of  playing  father  and  mother  with  her  dolls  and 
friends,  on  one  occasion  going  through  an  imaginary 
pregnancy  with  the  help  of  a  pillow  stuffed  under 
her  petticoats.  It  turned  out  finally  that  the  patient 
had  even  in  childhood  suffered  for  years  from  minor 
anxiety-hysteria:  often  she  was  not  able  to  go  to 
sleep  till  late  at  night  from  the  fear  that  her  stern 
father  might  come  to  her  and  shoot  her  dead  with 
the  revolver  that  he  kept  in  his  night-commode. 
The  choking  and  straining  movements  in  her  attacks 
were  signs  of  repression  "from  below  upwards" 
(Freud);  for  a  long  period  she  was  (like  Freud's 
patient,  Dora)  passionately  fond  of  sucking  various 
objects,  a  large  number  of  perverse  phantasies  co- 
operating with  a  strongly  developed  erogenous 
mouth-zone. 

This  anamnesis,  although  only  very  imperfectly 
reproduced,  is  instructive  in  two  respects.  In  the 
first  place,  it  shews  that  here  stubbornness,  the  re- 
jection of  any  idea  of  being  influenced,  which  stood 
in  the  way  of  any  attempt  at  treatment  by  sugges- 
tion, turned  out  in  the  analysis  to  be  resistance 


Introjection  and  Transference  91 

against  the  father.  In  the  second  place,  the  case 
teaches  one  that  this  resistance  was  a  derivative  of 
a  strongly  fixed  parental  complex,  an  Oedipus-com- 
plex feminini  generis,  and  that  her  parental  com- 
plexes were  interspersed  with  infantile  sexuality. 
(The  horse  dreams  of  this  patient  also  form  a  strik- 
ing analogy  with  the  phobia  of  horses  in  the  five- 
year-old  "little  Hans"  [Jahrbuch  I.]  that  Freud 
was  similarly  able  to  trace  to  identification  of  the 
father  with  a  horse.) 

What  I  desired  to  establish  by  the  facts  brought 
forward  is  the  view  that  the  "medium"  is  really  in 
love  with  the  hypnotist,  and  has  brought  his  tend- 
ency with  her  from  the  nursery.  I  will  merely  add 
that  the  usual  state  of  being  in  love  may  also  evince 
psychological  phenomena  that  remind  one  of  hyp- 
nosis. A  man  blinded  with  the  passion  of  love 
almost  helplessly  does  things  suggested  to  him  by 
his  sweetheart,  even  if  they  are  crimes.  In  the  cele- 
brated Czynsky  trial  the  most  learned  experts  could 
not  decide  whether  the  actions  of  the  baroness  con- 
cerned were  determined  by  her  being  in  love  or  by 
ideas  "suggested"  to  her. 

Most  of  the  homosexuals  who  have  told  me  their 
story  stated  that  they  had  been  hypnotised,  or  at 
least  submitted  to  the  influence  of  suggestion,  by  the 
first  man  with  whom  they  had  had  relations.  In  the 
analysis  of  such  a  case  it  becomes  evident,  of  course, 


92  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysts 

that  these  phantasies  of  being  hypnotised  are  only 
apologetic  attempts  at  projection. 

I  will  content  myself  with  these  hints,  and  will  not 
continue  the  analogy  between  the  state  of  being  in 
love  and  hypnosis,  lest  the  incorrect  impression  be 
aroused  that  it  is  here  only  a  question  of  deductively 
expatiating  on  a  banal  resemblance.  That  is  not  at 
all  the  case.  The  basis  on  which  this  hypothesis  is 
built  consists  of  laborious  individual-psychological 
investigations,  such  as  we  have  been  able  to  carry  out 
since  Freud's  work,  and  if  they  end  in  a  common- 
place, that  is  in  no  sense  an  argument  against  their 
correctness. 

An  undeniable  weakness  of  these  considerations,  it 
is  true,  is  that  they  are  based  on  a  relatively  small 
number  of  observed  cases.  It  lies  in  the  nature  of 
psycho-analytic  work,  however,  that  the  observation 
of  large  numbers  and  the  statistical  method  are  not 
applicable. 

Nevertheless  I  believe  I  have  brought  together, 
through  thorough  investigation  of  the  cases — even 
though  these  are  not  many — ,  through  the  funda- 
mental agreement  in  all  the  cases,  and  lastly  through 
the  extent  to  which  these  observations  fit  in  with 
the  rest  of  psycho-analytic  knowledge,  sufficient  ma- 
terial to  support  a  conception  of  hypnosis  and  sug- 
gestion that  differs  from  the  previous  ones. 

According  to  this  conception,  the  application  of 
suggestion  and  hypnosis  consists  in  the  deliberate 


Intro jection  and  Transference  93 

establishment  of  conditions  under  which  the  tendency 
to  blind  belief  and  uncritical  obedience  present  in 
everyone,  but  usually  kept  repressed  by  the  censor 
{remains  of  tlw  mfantUe-erotic  loving  and  fearing 
of  the  parents),  may  unconsciously  be  transferred 
to  the  person  hypnotising  or  suggesting.22 

"  (This  chapter  may  be  read  in  conjunction  with  that  en- 
titled "The  Action  of  Suggestion  in  Psychotherapy"  in  the 
Translator's  "Papers  on  Psycho-Analysis.")  : 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   ANALYSIS    OF    DREAMS  * 

A  PHENOMENON  not  rare  in  the  evolution  of 
science  is  that  professional  men  of  erudition, 
with  all  the  help  at  their  disposal,  with  all  the  im- 
plements of  their  knowledge  and  ability,  combat 
some  principle  of  popular  wisdom  which  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  defended  by  the  people  with  equal  te- 
nacity, and  that  finally  science  is  forced  to  recognise 
that  in  essentials  the  popular  conception,  and  not 
its  own,  is  the  correct  one.  It  would  be  especially 
worthy  of  investigation  to  discovery  why  it  is  that 
science,  on  its  gradually  mounting  path,  progresses 
in  an  irregular  zigzag  line,  which  at  times  comes  close 
to  the  popular  view  of  the  world,  and  at  times  quite 
departs  from  it. 

I  mention  this  peculiar  phenomenon  for  the  reason 
that  the  latest  investigations  of  dreams,  those  re- 
markable and  bizarre  manifestations  of  mental  life, 

'Delivered  before  the  Konigliche  Gesellschaft  der  Aerzte, 
Budapest,  Oct.  16,  1909;  published  in  the  Psychiatr.-Neurolog. 
Wochenschr.,  Jahrg.  XII.  (A  translation  by  Professor  Chase 
was  also  published  in  the  Amer.  Jour,  of  Psych.,  April,  1910, 
and  I  am  indebted  to  President  Stanley  Hall  for  permission  to 
reproduce  the  article  in  this  series.  Transl.) 

94 


Tlie  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams      95 

have  laid  bare  facts  that  compel  us  to  abandon  our 
former  views  regarding  the  nature  of  dreams,  and, 
with  certain  limitations,  to  return  to  the  popular 
conceptions. 

The  people  have  never  given  up  a  belief  in  the 
significance  of  dreams.  The  oldest  writings  that  have 
been  preserved  to  us,  hewn  out  in  stone  in  praise  of 
the  old  Babylonian  kings,  as  also  the  mythology 
and  history  of  the  Hindoos,  Chinese,  Aztecs,  Greeks, 
Etruscans,  Jews,  and  Christians,  take  the  point  of 
view  held  to-day  by  the  people,  that  dreams  can  be 
interpreted.  The  interpretation  of  dreams  was  for 
thousands  of  years  a  special  science,  a  particular 
cult,  whose  priests  and  priestesses  often  decided  the 
fate  of  countries  and  called  forth  revolutions  that 
changed  the  history  of  the  world.  This  now  anti- 
quated science  rested  on  the  unshakable  belief  that 
dreams,  though  in  a  concealed  way  and  by  obscure 
analogies,  were  quite  capable  of  being  interpreted  by 
the  initiate  and  revealed  the  future,  and  that  by 
these  nocturnal  phenomena  the  powers  above  desired 
to  prepare  mortals  for  approaching  events  of  im- 
portance. In  the  lower  ranks  of  the  populace  the 
dream  book,  that  curious  survival  of  ancient  Baby- 
lonian astrology,  still  enjoys  to-day  great  popu- 
larity. Although  the  details  of  the  dream-books 
differ  in  the  different  countries,  they  have  to  be  con- 
sidered as  products  of  the  common  folk-spirit. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  find  on  the  part  of  the  great 


96  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

majority  of  recent  psychologists  an  almost  complete 
contempt  for  the  dream  as  a  psychical  function,  and 
consequently  a  denial  that  the  dream-content  has 
any  significance.  Many  of  these  investigators  con- 
sider dreams  to  be  a  senseless  complex  of  hallucina- 
tions, which  blaze  up  in  a  lawless  way  in  the  brain 
of  the  sleeper.  According  to  the  view  of  other 
writers  dreams  are  nothing  but  the  psychical  re- 
action to  the  external  (objective)  or  internal  (sub- 
jective) stimuli  which  the  sensory  end-organs  of  the 
body  receive  during  sleep  an^  conduct  to  the  centres. 

There  were  only  a  few  who  held  that  the  mind  at 
sleep  was  able  to  develop  a  complicated,  significant 
activity,  or  that  the  dream  could  be  maintained  to 
have  any  sort  of  symbolic  meaning.  Even  these 
authors,  however,  failed  to  make  comprehensible  the 
peculiarities  of  dreams  without  forcing  their  explana- 
tions into  the  Procrustian  bed  of  an  artificial  play- 
ing with  allegories. 

Accordingly  for  centuries  the  army  of  supersti- 
tious interpreters  of  dreams  stood  over  against  that 
of  the  sceptics,  until  about  ten  years  ago  the  Vien- 
nese neurologist,  Professor  Freud,  discovered  facts 
that  make  possible  a  unification  of  the  two  opposing 
conceptions,  and  which  on  the  one  hand  helped  to 
disclose  the  true  nucleus  in  the  age-old  superstition, 
and  on  the  other  hand  fully  satisfied  the  scientific 
need  for  knowledge  of  the  relations  between  cause 
and  effect. 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams      97 

I  may  state  at  this  point  that  Freud's  theory  of 
dreams  and  his  method  of  interpretation  approach 
the  popular  conception  only  in  so  far  as  it  attributes 
sense  and  meaning  to  dreams.  The  newly  discovered 
facts  in  no  way  sustain  the  belief  of  those  who  would 
ascribe  dreams  to  interference  on  the  part  of  higher 
powers,  and  see  prophecies  in  them.  Freud's  theory 
regards  dreams  as  mental  products  dependent  on 
endopsychic  occurrences,  and  is  not  calculated  to 
strengthen  the  belief  of  those  who  consider  the  dream 
to  be  a  device  of  higher  powers  or  a  clairvoyance 
of  the  sleeper. 

It  was  psycho-analysis,  a  new  method  for  investi- 
gating and  treating  psychoneuroses,  that  made  it 
possible  for  Freud  to  recognise  the  true  significance 
of  dreams.  The  method  takes  its  point  of  departure 
in  the  principle  that  the  symptoms  of  these  dis- 
orders are  only  the  sensory  images  of  particular 
thought-constellations,  impregnated  with  feeling, 
which  were  distasteful  to  consciousness  and  there- 
fore repressed,  but  which  still  live  on  in  the  uncon- 
scious; and  in  the  fact  that  the  surrogate-creations 
for  the  repressed  material  vanish  as  soon  as  the  un- 
conscious thought  can  be  brought  to  light,  and  made 
conscious,  by  help  of  free  association.  In  the  course 
of  this  analytic  work  the  patients'  dreams  were  re- 
lated, and  Freud  made  their  content  also  an  object 
of  psycho-analytic  investigation.  To  his  surprise 
he  not  only  found  in  dream  analysis  a  great  aid  to 


98  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

the  treatment  of  neuroses,  but  he  gained  at  the  same 
time  as  a  by-product  a  new  explanation  of  dreams 
as  a  psychical  function,  more  enlightening  than  any 
of  the  previous  explanations.  In  many  chemical 
processes  materials  are  incidentally  obtained  by  the 
reduction  of  certain  chemicals  that  perhaps  have 
long  been  thrown  away  as  useless,  but  which  after  a 
time  have  been  shewn  to  be  valuable  materials,  often 
surpassing  in  value  the  principal  products  of  the 
manufacture.  This  was  rather  the  case  with  the 
explanation  of  dreams  incidentally  discovered  by 
Freud;  it  opens  up  such  outlooks  for  the  knowledge 
of  both  the  sound  and  the  disordered  mind  that  by 
comparison  its  particular  point  of  departure,  the 
treatment  of  certain  phenomena  of  nervous  disease, 
seems  a  scientific  question  of  second  rank. 

In  the  short  time  at  my  disposal  I  cannot  repro- 
duce exhaustively  Freud's  theory  of  dreams.  I  must 
rather  confine  myself  to  the  more  essential  explana- 
tions and  the  most  valuable  facts  of  the  new  theory, 
and  to  the  verification  by  means  of  examples.  Fur- 
ther, I  do  not  imagine  that  this  lecture  will  convince 
my  hearers.  According  to  my  experience  conviction 
in  matters  of  psycho-analysis  is  only  to  be  gained 
through  oneself.  So  I  shall  not  controvert  here  the 
less  important  and  quite  superficial  critics  of  Freud, 
but  will  rather  explain  in  brief  the  most  essential 
parts  of  the  theory  itself. 

First  a  few  words  concerning  the  method.     If  we 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams      99 

desire  to  analyse  a  dream,  we  proceed  exactly  as  in 
the  psychological  investigation  of  psychoneurotic 
symptoms.  Behind  each  obsession,  no  matter  how 
illogical  it  may  appear,  are  hidden  coherent  but  un- 
conscious thoughts,  and  to  make  these  evident  is  the 
problem  of  psycho-analysis.  Freud  has  shewn  that 
the  images  and  experiences  of  which  the  dream  con- 
sists are  for  the  most  part  merely  disguises,  sym- 
bolic allusions  to  suppressed  trains  of  thought.  Be- 
hind the  conscious  dream-content  is  hidden  a  latent 
dream-material,  which,  for  its  part,  was  aroused  by 
coherent,  logical  dream-thoughts.  The  interpreta- 
tion of  the  dream  is  nothing  else  than  the  transla- 
tion of  the  dream  from  its  hieroglyphic-symbolic 
speech  into  conceptual  speech,  the  leading  back  of 
the  manifest  dream-content  to  the  logical  dream- 
thoughts  through  the  clues  of  association  provided 
by  the  hidden  dream-material.  The  means  by  which 
this  is  done  is  the  so-called  free  association.  We 
have  the  dream  related  to  us,  divide  the  given  ma- 
terial into  several  parts  or  sections,  and  ask  the 
dreamer  to  tell  us  all  that  occurs  to  him  when  he 
directs  his  attention,  not  to  the  whole  dream,  but  to 
a  definite  part  of  it,  to  a  particular  event  or  word- 
image  occurring  in  it.  This  association,  however, 
must  be  wholly  free ;  consequently  the  one  thing  for- 
bidden is  the  dominance  of  critical  choice  among  the 
irruptive  ideas.  Any  half-way  intelligent  man  can 
be  brought  to  express  all  the  thoughts  associated 


100          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysts 

with  the  fragments  of  the  dream,  whether  clever  or 
stupid,  coherent  or  senseless,  pleasant  or  unpleas- 
ant, suppressing  the  shame  perhaps  bound  up  with 
them.  The  other  fragments  of  the  dream  are  also 
worked  over  in  this  way,  and  so  we  collect  the  latent 
dream  material,  that  is  to  say,  all  the  thoughts  and 
memories  of  which  the  conscious  dream-picture  is  to 
be  considered  the  condensation-product.  It  is  an 
error  to  think  that  the  activity  of  association  when 
left  free  is  devoid  of  any  regulation  by  law.  As  soon 
as  we  disregard  in  the  analysis  the  conscious  goal 
idea  of  our  thinking,  the  directive  forces  of  the  un- 
conscious psychic  activities,  that  is  to  say,  the  very 
same  mental  forces  that  functioned  in  the  creation 
of  the  dream,  prevail  in  the  choice  of  associations. 
We  have  long  been  familiar  with  the  thought  that 
there  is  no  chance  in  the  physical  world,  no  event 
without  sufficient  cause;  on  the  basis  of  psycho- 
analytical experience  we  have  to  suppose  just  as 
strict  a  determination  of  every  mental  activity, 
however  arbitrary  it  may  appear.  The  fear  is  there- 
fore unjustified  that  the  activity  of  association  when 
freed  from  all  restraint,  as  it  is  in  such  an  analysis, 
will  give  valueless  results.  The  subject  of  the  analy- 
sis, who  at  first  reproduces  his  apparently  senseless 
ideas  with  scornful  scepticism,  soon  discovers,  to  his 
surprise,  that  the  train  of  associations,  uninfluenced 
by  conscious  aid,  leads  to  the  awakening  of  thoughts 
and  memories  that  had  lorg  been  forgotten  or  re- 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    101 

pressed  on  account  of  the  pain  they  caused.  Through 
the  emergence  of  these,  however,  the  fragment  taken 
from  the  dream  is  made  intelligible  or  capable  of  in- 
terpretation. If  we  repeat  this  procedure  with  all 
the  parts  of  the  dream,  we  see  that  the  trains  of 
thought  radiating  from  the  different  fragments  con- 
verge on  to  a  very  essential  train  of  thought,  which 
had  been  stimulated  on  the  day  before  the  dream 
night — the  dream  thoughts  themselves.  Once  these 
are  recognised,  not  only  the  single  fragment,  but  also 
the  dream  as  a  whole  appears  coherent  and  intelli- 
gible. If,  finally,  we  compare  the  point  of  departure 
of  the  dream,  the  dream  thoughts,  with  the  content 
of  the  naively  related  dream,  we  see  that  the  dream 
is  nothing  else  than  the  concealed  fulfilment  of  a 
repressed  wish. 

This  sentence  contains  the  most  essential  results 
of  Freud's  investigation  of  dreams.  The  idea  that 
dreams  fulfil  wishes  that  in  the  rude  world  of  facts 
have  to  remain  unfulfilled  seems  to  partake  of  the 
language  of  abandoned  popular  science.  "Dreams'* 
are  used  metaphorically  in  most  languages  for 
"wishes,"  and  a  Hungarian  proverb  says  just  this, 
"swine  dream  of  acorns,  geese  of  maize" — which  can 
only  be  regarded  as  an  allusion  to  the  similar  di- 
rection of  human  dreams. 

Some  of  the  dreams  of  adults  and  most  of  those 
of  children  are  purely  wish-fulfilment  dreams.  The 
child  dreams  of  pleasurable  experiences  denied  him 


102          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

by  day,  of  the  toys  that  he  envied  his  little  com- 
rades, of  victorious  struggles  with  those  of  his  own 
age,  of  his  good  mother  or  his  friendly  father.  Very 
often  in  his  dream  he  seems  "big,"  endowed  with  all 
the  freedom  and  power  of  his  parents  for  which  he 
wishes  so  ardently  by  day.  Wish  dreams  like  these 
also  occur  to  adults.  The  difficult  examination  (  about 
which  we  are  so  anxious)  seems  in  dreams  splendidly 
passed;  dear  relatives  awaken  from  their  graves 
and  assure  us  they  are  not  dead ;  we  appear  to  our- 
selves rich,  powerful,  endowed  with  great  oratorical 
gifts ;  the  most  beautiful  of  women  solicit  our  favour, 
and  so  on.  For  the  most  part  we  attain  in  dreams 
just  that  which  we  painfully  miss  on  waking. 

The  same  tendency  to  wish-fulfilment  dominates 
not  only  in  nocturnal,  but  also  in  day  dreams,  those 
fancies  in  which  we  can  catch  ourselves  at  unoccupied 
moments  or  during  monotonous  activity.  Freud  has 
observed  that  women's  fancies  deal  for  the  most  part 
with  things  directly  or  indirectly  concerned  with  sex 
life  (of  being  loved,  proposals,  beautiful  clothes), 
those  of  men  predominantly  with  power  and  esteem, 
but  also  with  sexual  satisfaction.  Fancies  concern- 
ing the  means  of  escape  from  a  real  or  imagined 
danger  and  the  annihilation  of  real  or  imagined  ene- 
mies are  also  very  common.  These  simple  wish-ful- 
filment dreams  and  fancies  have  an  obvious  mean- 
ing, and  need  no  particular  labour  for  their  inter- 
pretation. 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    108 

But  what  is  new,  surprising,  and  incredible  to 
many  in  Freud's  explanation  of  dreams  is  the  asser- 
tion that  all  dreams,  even  those  which  seem  indiffer- 
ent or  even  unpleasant,  can  be  reduced  to  this  basai 
form,  and  that  it  can  be  shewn  by  analysis  that  they 
fulfil  wishes  in  a  disguised  way.  In  order  to  under- 
stand this  we  have  first  to  make  ourselves  familiar 
with  the  mechanism  of  psychic  activity  in  dreams. 

The  associative  analysis  of  a  dream  is  only  the 
reversal  of  the  synthetic  work  performed  at  night 
by  the  mind  when  it  transforms  the  unwelcome 
thought  and  the  unpleasant  sensation  that  disturb 
sleep  into  wish-fulfilling  dream-images.  Critical 
consideration  convinces  one  that  this  work  never 
ceases  during  sleep,  even  when  after  waking  we  can- 
not recall  having  dreamed  at  all.  The  traditional 
idea  that  dreams  disturb  rest  during  sleep  must  be 
abandoned  on  the  ground  of  these  newly  won  results ; 
on  the  contrary,  since  they  do  not  allow  the  unpleas- 
ant, painful  or  burdensome  thought  that  would  dis- 
turb sleep  to  become  conscious  with  its  true  content, 
but  only  in  a  changed  form  as  the  fulfilment  of  a 
wish,  we  are  compelled  to  recognise  dreams  as  the 
preservers  of  sleep. 

The  psychic  factor  watching  over  rest  during 
sleep,  often  with  the  assistance  of  the  dream  disguise 
already  mentioned,  is  the  censor.  This  is  the  gate- 
keeper at  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  which  we 
see  zealously  at  work  during  waking  life  also,  es- 


104         Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

pecially  in  the  psychoneuroses,  and  which  for  our 
problem  is  to  be  considered  as  either  repressing  all 
thought  groupings  that  are  in  ethical  or  aesthetic 
ways  distasteful,  or  disguising  them  in  the  form  of 
apparently  harmless  symbols,  symptomatic  actions, 
or  symptomatic  thoughts. 

The  function  of  the  censorship  is  to  secure  repose 
for  consciousness,  and  to  keep  at  a  distance  all  psy- 
chical productions  that  would  cause  pain  or  disturb 
rest.  And  like  the  censor  of  political  absolutism, 
who  sometimes  works  at  night,  the  psychic  censor- 
ship is  kept  in  activity  during  sleep,  though  its  red 
penciling  is  not  so  strongly  in  evidence  as  in  waking 
life.  Probably  the  censor  is  led  to  relax  its  activity 
by  the  idea  that  motor  reactions  are  paralysed  dur- 
ing sleep,  so  that  thoughts  cannot  be  expressed  in 
deeds.  Thus  the  fact  may  be  explained  that  for  the 
most  part  the  images  and  situations  emerging  as 
wish-fulfilments  in  dreams  are  those  which  by  day 
we  refuse  to  recognise  as  wishes. 

We  all  shelter  in  our  unconscious  many  wishes 
repressed  since  childhood,  which  take  the  oppor- 
tunity of  exercising  their  psychic  intensity  as  soon 
as  they  perceive  the  relaxation  of  the  censorship  at 
night. 

It  is  not  chance  that  among  the  wishes  revealed 
in  dreams  the  greatest  part  is  played  by  the  strongly 
repressed  sexual  excitations,  and  in  particular  those 
of  the  most  despised  kind.  It  is  a  very  great  error  to 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    105 

believe  that  psycho-analysis  deliberately  places  sex- 
ual activity  in  the  foreground.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that  whenever  one  attempts  thoroughly  to  investi- 
gate the  basal  facts  of  mental  life  one  always  strikes 
against  the  sexual  element.  If,  accordingly,  we  find 
psycho-analysis  objectionable  for  this  reason,  we  are 
really  degrading  the  description  of  the  unconscious 
facts  of  human  mentality  by  our  attitude  in  regard- 
ing them  as  obscene.  The  censorship  of  sexual  mat- 
ters is,  as  already  said,  much  milder  in  dream  life 
than  in  waking  hours,  so  that  in  dreams  we  experi- 
ence and  crave  for  sexual  experiences  without  bounds, 
even  representing  in  our  dreams  experiences  and  acts 
that  remind  one  of  the  so-called  perversions.  As  an 
example  of  this  I  may  avail  myself  of  the  dream  of 
a  patient  who  was  extraordinarily  modest  in  waking 
life.  He  saw  himself  enveloped  in  an  antique  pep- 
lum,  fastened  in  front  with  a  safety-pin ;  suddenly 
the  pin  fell  out,  the  white  garment  opened  in  front, 
and  his  nakedness  was  admired  by  a  great  crowd  of 
men.  Another  patient,  equally  modest,  told  me  this, 
which  is  an  exhibition  dream  with  somewhat  altered 
circumstances :  She  was  draped  from  top  to  toe  in 
a  white  garment,  and  bound  to  a  pillar ;  around  her 
stood  foreign  men,  Turks  or  Arabs,  who  were  hag- 
gling over  her.  The  scene  strongly  reminds  one, 
apart  from  her  enveloping  garment,  of  an  Oriental 
slave  market ;  and,  indeed,  analysis  brought  out  that 
this  lady,  now  so  modest,  had  read  when  a  young 


106         Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

girl  the  tales  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  had  seen 
herself  in  fancy  in  many  of  the  situations  of  the 
highly  coloured  love  scenes  of  the  Orient.  At  that 
time  she  imagined  that  slaves  were  exposed  for  sale 
not  clothed,  but  naked.  At  present  she  repudiates 
the  idea  of  nudity  so  strongly,  even  in  dreams,  that 
the  suppressed  wishes  bearing  on  this  theme  can  be 
manifested  only  when  changed  to  their  opposite. 
A  third  dreamer  only  allowed  herself  so  much  free- 
dom in  this  respect  as  to  move  about  amongst  the 
other  figures  of  her  dream  incompletely  clad,  in  her 
stockings  or  with  bare  feet ;  and  here  analysis  shewed 
that  as  a  child  she  had  over  a  long  period  greatly  en- 
joyed removing  her  clothes  and  going  about  without 
them,  so  that  she  was  nicknamed  "the  naked  Pancri" 
(her  name  was  Anna,  in  Hungarian  Fauna).  Such 
exhibition  dreams  are  so  frequent  that  Freud  was 
able  to  put  them  in  the  class  of  his  "typical"  dreams, 
which  recur  with  most  people  from  time  to  time  and 
have  the  same  origin.  They  are  based  on  the  fact 
that  there  lives  on  in  all  of  us  an  undying  longing 
for  the  return  of  the  paradise  of  childhood;  this  is 
the  "Golden  Age"  that  poets  and  Utopians  project 
from  the  past  into  the  future.  It  is  a  very  common 
means  of  dream  disguise  to  circumvent  the  censorship 
by  presenting  the  wish  not  as  such,  but  only  in  the 
form  of  an  allusion  in  the  dream.  It  would  not  be 
possible  to  understand,  for  example,  why  one  of  my 
patients  dreamed  so  often  of  sexual  scenes  with  A 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    107 

man  by  the  name  of  Frater,  who  was  quite  indifferent 
to  her,  if  we  had  not  learned  that  in  her  youth  her 
brother  (/ rater)  was  her  ideal  and  that  in  childhood 
the  affection  of  the  pair  had  often  assumed  a  purely 
erotic  form,  manifesting  itself  by  relations  that  she 
now  repressed  as  incestuous.  This  repression  of  for- 
bidden things  often  enters  into  dreams,  especially 
with  persons  who  in  consequence  of  incomplete  satis- 
faction of  their  sexual  hunger  are  inclined  to  the 
development  of  morbid  anxiety  (Freud's  anxiety 
neurotics).  Nocturnal  anxiety  can  become  so  great 
that  the  dreamer  awakes  with  feelings  of  distress 
(pavor  noctumus).  Anxiety,  which  has  a  physio- 
logical basis,  gives  in  such  cases  an  opportunity  for 
the  deeply  repressed  childish-perverse  excitations  to 
involve  themselves  in  the  dream,  in  the  form  of  cruel, 
horrible  scenes,  which  seem  frightful  to  us,  but  which 
in  a  certain  depth  of  the  unconscious  satisfy  wishes 
that  in  the  "prehistoric"  ages  of  our  own  mental  de- 
velopment were  actually  recognised  as  desires. 

The  great  part  played  in  such  dreams  by  cruelties 
inflicted  or  endured  must  find  its  explanation  in  the 
sadistic  idea  that  children  have  of  the  sex-relation- 
ship, as  Freud  has  so  prettily  shewn  in  his  "infantile 
sexual  theories."  2  All  the  cruel  acts  of  such  dreams 
appear  in  analysis  as  sexual  events  transformed  into 
deeds  of  violence.  Sexually  unsatisfied  women,  for 

*  Freud.    Sammlung    Kleiner    Schriften    zur    Neurosenlehre. 
2e  Folge,  1909. 


108  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

example,  very  commonly  dream  of  thieves  breaking 
in,  of  attacks  by  robbers  or  wild  beasts,  not  one  of 
the  well-concealed  incidents  of  the  dream  betraying 
the  fact  that  the  outrages  to  which  the  dreamer  is 
subjected  really  symbolise  sexual  acts.  An  hysteric 
of  my  observation  once  dreamed  that  she  was 
run  down  by  a  bull  in  front  of  which  she  held  a 
red  garment.  There  was  involved  in  this  dream  not 
only  the  present  wish  to  possess  such  a  dress,  but 
also  an  unavowed  sexual  wish,  the  same  one  that  also 
caused  the  illness.  The  thought  of  the  frightfully 
enraged  bull,  which  is  a  wide-spread  symbol  of  mas- 
culine strength,  came  to  her  especially  through  the 
circumstance  that  a  man  with  a  so-called  "bull  neck" 
had  played  a  certain  part  in  the  development  of  her 
sexual  life. 

Childhood  memories  make  continual  and  always 
significant  contributions  to  the  creation  of  dreams. 
Freud  has  shewn  not  merely  that  even  the  earliest 
age  of  childhood  is  not  free  from  sexual  excitations, 
but  rather  that  infantile  sexuality,  not  yet  restrained 
by  education,  is  expressly  of  a  perverse  character. 
In  infantile  sexuality  the  oral  and  anal-urethral  ero- 
genous zones,  the  partial  instincts  of  sexual  curiosity 
and  of  exhibitionism,  as  well  as  sadistic  and  maso- 
chistic impulses,  dominate  the  scene.  When  we  con- 
sider these  facts  we  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
Freud  is  in  the  right  when  he  says  that  dreams  ex- 
press such  impulses  as  wish-fulfilments,  the  fulfil- 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    109 

ment  of  wishes  from  that  part  of  our  childhood  that 
seems  long  since  outgrown. 

There  are,  however,  dreams  of  very  unpleasant 
content  which  strangely  enough  disturb  our  sleep 
hardly  at  all,  so  that  when  we  awaken  we  reproach 
ourselves  for  experiencing  such  terrible  events  with 
so  little  sympathy  or  feeling.  This  sort  of  dream 
was  observed,  for  instance,  by  one  of  Freud's  pa- 
tients who  in  a  dream  was  present  at  the  funeral  of 
a  beloved  nephew.  An  apparently  unessential  detail* 
of  the  dream,  a  concert  ticket,  led  to  the  explanation 
of  the  occurrence.  The  lady  in  question  meant  to 
attend  a  concert  on  the  next  night,  where  she  ex- 
pected to  see  again  the  man  whom  she  had  formerly 
loved  and  had  not  yet  forgotten,  and  whom  she  had 
last  met  a  long  while  before  at  the  funeral  of  another 
nephew.  So  the  dream,  in  order  to  hasten  the  meet- 
ing, sacrificed  the  other  nephew.  The  censorship,  ap- 
parently knowing  that  a  harmless  wish,  not  one  of 
death,  was  to  be  fulfilled,  let  the  funeral  "pass" 
without  attaching  to  it  any  obvious  emotional  ex- 
citation. This  analysis  may  serve  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  all  those  dreams  that  apparently  contradict 
Freud's  wish  theory,  and  which  have  to  do  with  very 
unwelcome  matters  or  even  with  the  non-fulfilment 
of  wishes.  If  we  seek  out  the  latent  dream  thoughts 
concealed  behind  these  dreams  that  are  invested  with 
painful  effects,  it  becomes  clear  to  us  that,  as  Fteud 
himself  expresses  it,  the  non-fulfilment  of  a  wish  in 


110  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

a  dream  always  means  the  fulfilment  of  some  other 
wish. 

When  we  consider  the  dream-material  gained  by 
free  association  from  the  conscious  dream  elements, 
it  becomes  clear  that  they  more  usually  flow  from 
two  opposite  sources;  from  childhood  memories  on 
the  one  hand,  and  from  unnoticed  experiences  of  the 
"dream  day,"  often  quite  indifferent,  to  which  the 
person  had  not  reacted.  Indeed,  according  to 
Freud's  expression,  every  well-articulated  dream 
stands  as  it  were  on  two  legs,  and  is  shewn  by  analysis 
to  be  over-determined,  that  is,  to  be  the  fulfilment 
of  both  a  present  and  a  long  suppressed  wish. 

As  an  example  I  may  relate  the  dream  of  a  patient 
suffering  from  a  nervous  difficulty  in  urination.  "A 
polished  floor,  wet,  as  though  a  pool  lay  there.  Two 
chairs  leaning  against  the  wall.  As  I  look  around,  I 
note  that  the  front  legs  of  both  chairs  are  missing, 
as  when  one  wants  to  play  a  practical  joke  on  some 
one  and  gets  him  to  sit  down  on  a  broken  chair,  so 
that  he  falls.  One  of  my  friends  was  also  there  with 
her  affianced." 

Free  association  on  the  theme  of  the  polished  floor 
gave  the  fact  that  on  the  day  before  her  brother  in 
a  rage  had  thrown  a  pitcher  to  the  floor,  which,  with 
the  water  spilled  over  it,  looked  like  the  floor  in  the 
dream.  She  also  recalled  a  similar  floor  from  her 
childhood;  on  this  occasion  her  brother,  then  very 
young,  had  made  her  laugh  so  hard  that  micturition 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    111 

ensued.  This  part  of  the  dream,  which  also  proved 
to  be  significant  for  the  symptom-formation  of  the 
neurosis,  accordingly  fulfilled  infantile  erotic  wishes, 
which  could  now  in  consequence  of  strong  censorship 
be  presented  only  as  allusions.  The  two  broken  chairs 
leaning  against  the  wall  were  shewn  by  analysis  to 
be  a  scenic  presentation  of  the  proverb  "to  fall  to 
the  ground  between  two  stools."  The  patient  had 
had  two  suitors,  but  the  family  constellation  just 
mentioned  (the  unconscious  love  for  the  brother) 
prevented  the  marriage  on  both  occasions.  And  al- 
though her  conscious  ego,  according  to  her  repeated 
testimony,  had  long  been  reconciled  to  the  idea  of 
spinsterhood,  she  still  seems  in  the  depth  of  her  soul 
to  have  regarded  with  some  envy  the  recent  be- 
trothal of  one  of  her  friends.  The  affianced  pair 
had  in  fact  been  calling  on  her  the  day  before  the 
dream. 

According  to  Freud's  theory  we  may  picture  to 
ourselves  the  origin  of  this  dream  in  the  following 
way:  The  dream-work  succeeded  in  uniting  two  ex- 
periences of  the  day  before,  the  breaking  of  the 
pitcher  and  the  visit  of  the  bethrothed  pair,  with  that 
train  of  thought,  always  emotionally  toned,  which, 
though  already  suppressed  in  childhood,  was  always 
in  a  condition  to  lend  its  effective  energy  to  any  cur- 
rent mental  image  that  could  be  brought  into  even 
a  superficial  connection  with  it.  Freud  compares  a 
dream  to  the  promotion  of  a  business  undertaking. 


112          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

in  which  the  unconscious  repressed  complex  fur- 
nishes the  capital,  that  is,  the  affective  energy,  while 
the  wishes  play  the  part  of  promoters. 

Another  source  of  dreams  is  in  the  sensory  and 
sensorial  nerve-stimulations  to  which  the  organism 
is  subjected  during  sleep.  These  may  be:  dermal 
stimuli,  the  pressure  of  mattress  and  covering,  cool- 
ing of  the  skin ;  acoustic  or  optical  stimuli ;  organic 
sensation* — hunger,  thirst,  an  overloaded  stomach, 
an  excited  condition  of  the  sexual  parts,  and  so  on. 
Most  psychologists  and  physiologists  are  inclined 
to  attribute  too  great  significance  to  stimuli  of  this 
sort;  they  think  they  have  given  a  satisfactory  ex- 
planation of  all  dreams  when  they  say  that  the  dream 
is  nothing  but  the  sum  of  the  psychophysical  reac- 
tions set  free  by  nerve  stimuli  of  this  character.  On 
the  other  hand,  Freud  rightly  remarks  that  the 
dream  does  not  admit  these  bodily  stimuli  as  such  to 
consciousness,  but  disguises  and  alters  them  in  par- 
ticular ways ;  the  motive  and  means  of  this  disguise 
are  given,  not  through  the  external  stimuli,  but  from 
mental  sources  of  energy.  The  nervous  stimuli  dur- 
ing sleep  offer,  as  it  were,  only  the  opportunity  for 
the  unfolding  of  certain  immanent  tendencies  of  the 
psychical  life.  Analysis  shews  that  dreams  caused 
by  nervous  stimulation  are  also  wish-fulfilments, 
either  open  or  concealed:  the  thirsty  man  drinks 
large  amounts  of  water  in  his  dreams;  the  hungry 
man  satisfies  himself;  the  sick  man  who  is  disturbed 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    113 

by  the  ice-packing  on  his  head  throws  it  away,  for 
he  thinks  of  himself  in  his  dream  as  already  well; 
the  painful  throbbing  of  a  boil  on  the  perinaeum 
leads  to  the  dream  idea  of  riding.  So  it  is  made 
possible  that  the  hunger,  the  thirst,  the  pressure  on 
the  head,  the  painful  inflammation,  do  not  waken 
the  sleeper,  but  are  transformed  into  wish-fulfilments 
by  the  psychic  forces. 

The  anxiety-dream  known  as  "nightmare," 
brought  on  by  an  overloaded  stomach,  respiratory 
or  circulatory  disturbances,  or  by  intoxication,  per- 
mits of  explanation  in  the  same  way ;  the  unpleasant 
bodily  sensations  offer  an  opportunity  for  deeply 
repressed  wishes  to  fulfil  themselves,  wishes  which 
the  censorship  of  civilisation  will  not  allow  to  pass 
and  which  can  break  through  into  consciousness  only 
in  connection  with  feelings  of  anxiety  and  disgust. 

In  the  process  of  analysis,  as  has  already  been 
said,  we  retrace,  only  in  the  reverse  direction,  the 
same  path  that  the  sleeping  soul  has  travelled  in  the 
formation  of  the  dream.  When  we  compare  the  mani- 
fest dream,  often  very  short,  with  the  rich  material 
that  is  brought  to  light  during  the  process  of  analy- 
sis, and  when  we  consider  that  in  spite  of  this  quan- 
titative difference  all  the  elements  of  the  latent 
dream-content  are  contained  in  some  way  in  the  por- 
tion that  is  manifest  to  us,  we  must  agree  that  Freud 
is  right  in  considering  this  dream-condensation  as 
the  most  laborious  part  of  the  dream-formation,  I 


Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

will  try  to  shew  this  by  means  of  an  example.  A 
patient  suffering  from  psychosexual  impotence 
brought  to  me  on  one  occasion  a  dream  composed  of 
two  fragments.  In  the  first  one  the  only  occurrence 
was  that  instead  of  a  Hungarian  newspaper  "Pesti 
Hirlap,"  which  came  regularly  to  him,  he  received 
the  Vienna  "Neue  Freie  Presse,"  to  which  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  one  of  his  colleagues  had  subscribed.  The 
second  part  of  the  dream  dealt  with  a  brunette  whom 
he  ardently  desired  to  marry.  It  turned  out  that  in 
the  dream  he  acquired  not  the  foreign  newspaper 
but,  in  the  hidden  sense  of  the  dream,  a  foreign 
woman  to  whom  in  fact  a  colleague  had  "subscribed." 
This  woman  had  long  excited  his  interest,  for  it 
seemed  to  him  that  just  this  person  would  be  able  to 
get  his  sexuality,  which  was  struggling  with  strong 
inhibitions,  to  function.  The  thought  associations 
that  came  from  this  idea  made  it  plain  that  he  had 
been  deceived  in  his  hopes  of  another  woman,  with 
whom  he  had  entered  into  the  same  relation.  This 
woman,  being  a  Hungarian,  had  been  concealed  in  the 
dream  behind  the  name  of  the  paper  "Pesti  Hirlap." 
Of  late  he  had  occupied  himself  in  seeking  free  sexual 
associations,  which  led  to  no  obligations,  instead 
of  a  more  stable  relationship.  When  we  know  the 
great  freedom  with  which  the  dream  avails  itself 
of  symbols,  we  are  not  surprised  to  learn  that  my 
patient  also  applied  the  word  "Press"  in  a  sexual 
sense.  The  second  part  of  the  dream  shews,  as 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    116 

though  to  confirm  our  interpretations,  that  the  pa- 
tient had  often  been  obliged  to  think,  not  without 
anxiety,  that  relations  which  lasted  too  long,  like 
that  between  him  and  his  friend,  could  easily  lead 
to  a  mesalliance.  One  who  does  not  know  what 
Freud  has  shewn  in  his  monograph,3  namely  that  the 
psychic  motive  and  means  of  presentation  of  wit  are 
almost  exactly  the  same  as  those  that  come  out  in 
dreams,  might  consider  us  guilty  of  a  cheap  joke  in 
saying  that  the  dream  succeeds  in  condensing  in  the 
words  "Neue  Freie  Presse"  all  the  patient's  thoughts 
and  wishes  relating  to  the  pleasures  of  which  his  ill- 
ness had  robbed  him  and  the  means  of  benefit  that 
he  had  in  mind,  namely,  the  stimulus  of  the  new,  and 
the  greater  freedom  for  which  he  was  striving.  ( Nov- 
elty and  newspaper  are  expressed  in  Hungarian  by 
the  same  word  "ujsag.") 

Highly  characteristic  products  of  the  dream-con- 
densation are  the  composite  formations  of  persons, 
objects,  and  words.  These  "monstrosities  of  the 
dream  world"  have  largely  contributed  to  the  cir- 
cumstance that  dreams  up  to  our  day  have  been  re- 
garded as  mental  productions  without  value  or 
sense.  But  psycho-analysis  convinces  us  that  when 
the  dream  links  together  or  fuses  two  features  or 
concepts,  it  furnishes  a  product  of  the  same  work  of 
condensation  to  which  the  less  obvious  parts  of  the 

*  Freud.     Der  Wit*  und  seine  Beziehung  zum  Unbewussten. 
1009. 


116  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

dream  owe  their  disguise.  One  of  the  rules  of  the 
art  of  dream  interpretation  says  that  in  cases  of  such 
composite  formations  the  dream  material  of  the 
single  constituents  must  first  be  sought,  and  then 
only  can  it  be  determined  on  what  basis  of  a  com- 
mon element  or  similarity  the  welding  together  has 
taken  place.  An  example  of  this,  which  is  of  value 
theoretically,  I  owe  to  one  of  my  patients.  The  com- 
posite picture  that  occurred  in  one  of  her  dreams 
was  made  up  of  the  person  of  a  physician  and  of  a 
horse,  which  in  addition  was  attired  in  night  cloth- 
ing. Associations  led  from  the  horse  into  the  pa- 
tient's childhood.  As  a  girl  she  had  suffered  for  a 
long  time  from  a  pronounced  phobia  of  horses ;  she 
avoided  them  especially  on  account  of  their  evident 
and  open  satisfaction  of  their  bodily  needs.  It  also 
occurred  to  her  that  as  a  child  she  had  often  been 
taken  by  her  nurse  to  the  military  quarters,  where 
she  had  had  the  opportunity  of  observing  all  these 
things  with  a  curiosity  that  was  at  that  time  still 
unrestrained.  The  night-clothing  reminded  her  of 
her  father,  whom  she  had  had  the  opportunity  of 
seeing,  while  she  still  slept  in  her  parents'  room,  not 
only  in  such  costume,  but  in  the  act  of  satisfying  his 
bodily  needs.  (This  case  often  occurs;  parents  for 
the  most  part  place  no  restraint  on  themselves  be- 
fore three-and  four-year-old  children,  whose  under- 
standing and  faculty  of  observation  they  materially 
underestimate).  The  third  constituent  of  the  com- 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    117 

posite  picture,  the  physician,  awakened  in  me  the 
suspicion,  which  proved  to  be  well  grounded,  that  the 
patient  had  unconsciously  transferred  her  sexual 
curiosity  from  her  father  to  the  physician  who  was 
treating  her. 

The  constituent  parts  of  a  composite  image  often 
have  an  unequal  share  in  its  formation ;  perhaps  only 
a  characteristic  movement  of  one  person  is  grafted 
on  to  the  second  person.  I  once  saw  myself  in  a 
dream  rub  my  forehead  with  my  hand  just  as  my 
honoured  master,  Professor  Freud,  does  when  he  is 
meditating  over  a  difficult  question.  It  does  not  re- 
quire much  art  of  interpretation  to  guess  that  this 
confounding  of  teacher  and  pupil,  particularly  in, 
meditation,  can  only  be  ascribed  to  envy  and  ambi- 
tion, when  at  night  the  intellectual  censorship  was 
relaxed.  In  my  waking  life  I  have  to  laugh  at  the 
boldness  of  this  identification,  which  makes  me  think 
of  the  saying,  "How  he  clears  his  throat,  and  how  he 
expectorates,  that  you  have  learned  well  from  him." 
As  an  example  of  a  composite  word  I  may  mention 
that  in  a  dream  a  German-speaking  patient  thought 
of  a  certain  Metzler  or  Wetzler.  No  one  of  this 
name,  however,  is  known  to  the  patient,  but  on  the 
day  before  the  dream  he  was  much  occupied  with  the 
approaching  marriage  of  a  friend,  by  the  name  of 
Messer,  who  liked  to  tease  (hetzen)  the  patient.  The 
associations  from  Messer  shewed  that  as  a  small 
child  he  had  been  very  afraid  of  his  grandfather, 


118          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

who  while  whetting  (wetzen)  his  pocket-knife  (Tas- 
chenmesser)  had  jokingly  threatened  to  cut  his  penis 
off,  a  threat  that  was  not  without  influence  on  the 
development  of  his  sexuality.  The  names  "Metzler- 
Wetzler"  are  accordingly  nothing  but  condensations 
of  the  words,  messer,  lietzen  and  wetzen. 

Dream  condensation  stands  in  close  relation  to  the 
work  of  displacement  and  transvaluation  of  the 
dream.  This  consists  essentially  in  the  fact  that  the 
psychical  intensity  of  the  dream-thoughts  is  shunted 
over  from  the  essentials  to  the  accessories,  so  that 
the  thought-complex  that  is  at  the  focus  of  interest 
is  represented  in  the  conscious  dream  content  either 
not  at  all  or  by  a  weak  allusion,  while  the  maximum 
of  interest  in  the  dream  is  turned  to  the  more  insig- 
nificant constituents  of  the  dream-thoughts.  The 
work  of  condensation  and  of  displacement  go  hand 
in  hand.  The  dream  renders  harmless  an  important 
thought,  which  would  disturb  the  sleeper's  rest,  or  be 
censured  on  ethical  grounds.  It  goes  as  it  were  be- 
yond such  a  thought,  by  attaching  memory-images 
to  its  less  essential  parts  until  the  condensed  psy- 
chical intensity  of  the  former  can  distract  the  at- 
tention from  the  thought  of  particular  interest.  As 
an  example  of  the  displaced  centre  of  the  conscious 
dream  in  comparison  with  the  centre  of  the  dream- 
thoughts  I  may  mention  the  already  cited  dream  of 
the  aunt  concerning  the  death  of  her  beloved  nephew. 
The  funeral,  which  actually  was  not  essential,  took 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    119 

up  the  largest  place  in  the  dream,  the  personality 
that  was  most  significant  for  the  dream-thoughts 
was  on  the  contrary  present  in  the  dream  only 
through  a  distant  allusion. 

I  was  once  called  upon  to  analyse  the  very  short 
dream  of  a  woman ;  in  it  she  had  wrung  the  neck  of  a 
little,  barking,  white  dog.  She  was  very  much  aston- 
ished that  she,  who  "could  not  hurt  a  fly,"  could 
dream  such  a  cruel  dream,  and  she  did  not  remem- 
ber having  dreamt  one  like  it  before.  She  admitted 
that,  being  very  fond  of  cooking,  she  had  many  times 
killed  pigeons  and  fowls  with  her  own  hand.  Then 
it  occurred  to  her  that  she  had  wrung  the  neck  of 
the  little  dog  in  the  dream  in  exactly  the  same  way 
as  she  was  accustomed  to  do  with  the  pigeons  in  order 
to  cause  them  less  pain.  The  thoughts  and  associa- 
tions that  followed  had  to  do  with  pictures  and 
stories  of  executions,  and  especially  with  the  thought 
that  the  executioner,  when  he  has  fastened  the  cord 
about  the  criminal's  neck,  arranges  it  so  as  to  give 
the  neck  a  twist,  and  thus  hasten  death.  Aslced 
against  whom  she  felt  strong  enmity  at  the  present 
time,  she  named  a  sister-in-law,  and  related  at  length 
her  bad  qualities  and  malicious  deeds,  with  which  she 
had  disturbed  the  family  harmony,  before  so  beau- 
tiful, after  insinuating  herself  like  a  tame  pigeon 
into  the  favour  of  her  subsequent  husband.  Not 
long  before  a  violent  scene  had  taken  place  between 
her  and  the  patient,  which  ended  by  the  latter  shew- 


120  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

ing  her  the  door  with  the  word :  "Get  out ;  I  cannot 
endure  a  biting  dog  in  my  house."  Now  it  was  clear 
whom  the  little  white  dog  represented,  and  whose 
neck  she  was  wringing  in  the  dream.  The  sister-in- 
law  is  also  a  small  person,  with  a  remarkably  white 
complexion.  This  little  analysis  enables  us  to  ob- 
serve the  dream  in  its  displacing  and  thus  disguising 
activity.  Without  doubt  the  dream  used  the  com- 
parison with  the  biting  dog,  instead  of  the  real  ob- 
ject of  the  execution  fancy  (the  sister-in-law), 
smuggling  in  a  little  white  dog  just  as  the  angel 
in  the  Biblical  story  gave  Abraham  at  the  last  mo- 
ment a  ram  to  slaughter,  when  he  was  preparing  to 
slaughter  his  son.  In  order  to  accomplish  this  the 
dream  had  to  heap  up  memory-images  of  the  killing 
of  animals  until  by  means  of  their  condensed  psychi- 
cal energy  the  image  of  the  hated  person  paled, 
and  the  scene  of  the  manifest  dream  was  shifted  to 
the  animal  kingdom.  Memory-images  of  human  exe- 
cutions served  as  a  connecting  link  for  this  displace- 
ment. 

This  example  gives  me  the  opportunity  to  repeat 
that,  with  few  exceptions,  the  conscious  dream-con- 
tent is  not  the  true  reproduction  of  our  dream- 
thoughts,  but  only  a  displaced,  wrongly  accented 
caricature,  the  original  of  which  can  be  reconstructed 
only  by  the  help  of  psycho-analysis. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  phenomenon  of  dream  work  that 
the  material  of  abstract  thought,  the  concept,  is 


The  Psychological  Analysis   of  Dreams     121 

capable  of  being  presented  in  the  dream  only  to  a 
slight  extent  or  not  at  all,  that  rather  the  dream  as 
it  were  dramatises  thoughts  only  in  optical  or  acous- 
tic sense-images,  changes  them  to  scenes  enacted  on 
a  stage,  and  in  this  way  brings  them  to  presentation. 
Freud  strikingly  characterises  the  difficulty  imposed 
on  the  dream  by  this  necessity  of  working  only  with 
concrete  material  when  he  says  that  the  dream  itself 
has  to  turn  the  thoughts  of  a  political  editorial  into 
illustrations. 

Dreams  are  given  to  using  ambiguous  words  and 
interpretations  of  all  sorts  of  expressions  in  concrete 
or  metaphorical  senses  in  order  to  make  abstract 
conceptions  and  thoughts  capable  of  presentation 
and  so  of  inclusion  in  the  dream. 

The  memory  of  every  man  at  all  educated  contains 
a  large  number  of  proverbs,  quotations,  figures  of 
speech,  parables,  fragments  of  verse,  and  so  forth. 
The  content  of  these  offers  very  suitable  material, 
ever  present,  that  can  be  applied  to  the  scenic  presen- 
tation of  a  thought  or  to  an  allusion  to  it.  I  will 
try  to  make  this  clear  by  a  series  of  examples.  One 
of  my  patients  related  to  me  the  following  dream: 
"I  go  into  a  large  park,  walking  on  a  long  path. 
I  cannot  see  the  end  of  the  path  or  of  the  garden 
hedge,  but  I  think  I  will  go  on  until  I  arrive  at  the 
end."  The  park  and  hedge  of  the  dream  resem- 

4  (This  dream  was  in  the  Hungarian  language,  and  the  sense 
of  it  depends  on  a  play  on  words  that  is  not  translated  by  the 
author.  Transl.) 


122  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

bled  the  garden  of  one  of  her  aunts,  with  whom  she 
had  passed  many  happy  holidays  in  her  youth.  She 
remembers  in  connection  with  this  aunt  that  they 
customarily  shared  the  same  room,  but  when  her 
uncle  was  at  home  the  young  guest  was  "put  out" 
into  a  neighbouring  room.  The  girl  at  that  time  had 
only  a  very  fragmentary  conception  of  sex  matters, 
and  often  tried  by  peeping  through  cracks  in  the 
door  and  through  the  keyhole  to  find  out  what  was 
going  on  within.  The  wish  to  get  to  the  end  of  the 
hedge  symbolised  in  this  dream  the  wish  to  get  to 
the  bottom  of  what  was  going  on  between  the  married 
pair.  This  wish  was  further  determined  by  an  ex- 
perience of  the  day  before. 

Another  patient  dreamed  of  the  corridor  of  the 
girls'  boarding  school  in  which  she  was  educated. 
She  saw  her  own  clothes-closet  there,  but  could  not 
find  the  key,  so  that  she  was  forced  to  break  open  the 
door;  but  as  she  violently  opened  the  door,  it  be- 
came evident  that  there  was  nothing  within.  The 
whole  dream  proved  to  be  a  symbolic  masturbation- 
phantasy,  a  memory  from  the  time  of  puberty;  the 
female  genitals  were,  as  so  often  happens,  presented 
as  a  cupboard.  But  the  supplement  to  the  dream, 
"there  is  nothing  within"  (es  ist  nichts  darm)  means 
in  Hungarian  the  same  as  "it  is  no  matter"  (es  ist 
nichts  daran),  and  is  a  sort  of  exculpation  or  self- 
consolation  of  this  sufferer  from  a  bad  conscience. 

Another  girl,  whose  neurosis  was  brought  on  by 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams 

the  death  of  her  brother,  who,  according  to  her 
view,  married  too  early  and  was  not  happy  in  his 
marriage,  dreamed  continually  of  the  dead  man. 
Once  she  saw  him  lying  in  his  grave,  but  the  head 
was  turned  to  one  side  in  a  peculiar  manner,  or  the 
skull  had  grown  into  a  bough ;  another  time  she  saw 
him,  referring  to  his  modest  origin,  "one  fallen  from 
which  he  had  to  jump.  All  this  symbolism  was  a 
complaint  against  the  wife  and  the  father-in-law  of 
the  dead  man,  who  turned  the  boy's  head  when  he 
was  almost  a  child,  and  in  the  end  made  him  "jump 
down"  (a  Hungarian  idiom)  and  who  nevertheless 
did  not  consider  him  their  equal,  for  they  once  called 
him,  referring  to  his  modest  origin,  "one  fallen  from 
a  bough"  (another  Hungarian  idiom.) 

Very  often  falling  from  a  great  height  pictures  in 
a  concrete  way  the  threat  of  ethical  or  material  fall ; 
with  girls,  sitting  may  mean  spinsterhood  (Sitzen- 
bleiben) ;  with  men,  a  large  basket  may  mean  the  fear 
of  an  unsuccessful  wooing  (emen  Korb  erhalten).  It 
occurs  still  more  commonly  that  the  human  body  is 
symbolised  by  a  house,  the  windows  and  doors  of 
which  represent  the  natural  openings  of  the  body. 
My  patient  who  suffered  from  sexual  impotence 
made  use  of  a  vulgar  Hungarian  expression  for 
coitus,  namely  the  word  for  "to  shoot,"  and  very 
often  dreamed  of  shooting,  missing  fire,  the  rusting 
of  his  fire-arms,  and  so  on. 

It  would  be  an  enticing  problem  to   collect  the 


Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

fragments  of  dreams  that  can  be  explained  symboli- 
cally and  to  write  a  modern  dream-book,  in  which 
the  explanation  could  be  found  for  the  separate 
parts  of  dreams.  This  is  not  possible,  however,  for 
although  much  typical  material  recurs  in  dreams  and 
in  most  cases  can  be  correctly  interpretated  without 
analysis,  symbols  may  have  different  meanings  with 
different  individuals,  and  even  with  the  same  indi- 
vidual at  different  times.  Accordingly,  if  we  wish 
to  know  in  any  particular  case  all  the  determinants 
of  a  single  dream  fragment  there  is  nothing  for  it 
but  laborious  analysis,  for  which  the  investigating 
power  and  the  wit  of  the  interpreter  alone  will  not 
suffice,  the  industrious  co-operation  of  the  dreamer 
being  indispensable. 

Still  greater  difficulties  than  are  created  by  the 
presentation  of  abstract  thoughts  are  met  with  when 
the  dream  endeavours  to  present  in  a  concrete  way 
the  thought-relations  of  the  individual  dream- 
thoughts.  Freud  rendered  a  valuable  service  by 
succeeding  in  making  it  possible  to  discover  the  whole 
of  the  concealed,  formal  peculiarities  of  the  connec- 
tions of  the  dream,  with  which  it  endeavours  to  pre- 
sent logical  relations.  Logical  relations  between  two 
dream  elements  with  respect  to  the  dream-thoughts 
that  are  concealed  behind  them  are  presented  in  the 
simplest  cases  by  temporal  or  spatial  proximity,  or 
by  a  fusion  of  the  features  of  the  dream. 

Dreams  lack  a  means  for  presenting  causal  con- 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    125 

nection,  of  the  "either-or"  relation  of  conditions, 
and  so  on,  so  that  all  these  relations  are  brought  to 
presentation  in  a  very  insufficient  way  by  means  of 
a  temporal  sequence  of  the  dream  elements.  From 
this  circumstance  arise  many  embarrassments  for  the 
dream  interpreter,  from  which  he  can  often  be  extri- 
cated only  by  the  communications  of  the  dreamer. 
Much,  however,  can  be  divined.  For  example,  if  one 
dream  picture  changes  to  another,  we  can  divine 
behind  this  cause  and  effect;  but  this  connection  the 
dream  often  presents  by  two  completely  separated 
dreams,  one  signifying  the  cause,  the  other  the  effect. 
Even  the  presentation  of  a  simple  negative  the  dream 
can  manage  only  with  great  difficulty,  so  that — as 
we  know  from  Freud — we  can  never  tell  in  advance 
whether  the  dream-thought  is  to  be  taken  in  a  posi- 
tive or  a  negative  way.  Considering  the  complexi- 
ties of  our  mental  organisation  it  may  be  seen  only 
too  easily  that  affirmation  and  negation  of  the  same 
thoughts  and  feeling-complexes  are  to  be  met  with 
in  the  dream-thoughts  side  by  side,  or,  rather,  in 
succession.  It  may  be  taken  as  an  indication  of 
displeasure  or  scorn  when  anything  in  a  dream  is  pre- 
sented in  a  reversed  form,  or  when  the  truth  is  pre- 
sented very  openly  and  in  a  striking  way.  The 
feeling  of  inhibition,  which  is  so  common,  signifies  a 
conflict  of  the  will,  the  struggle  of  opposing  motives. 
In  spite  of  the  lack  of  all  logical  relations  in  the 
translation  of  the  dream-thoughts  into  the  manifest 


126          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

dream,  the  latter  often  seems  to  be  possessed  of  sense 
and  to  be  correlated.  When  this  is  the  case  it  may 
result  from  one  of  two  causes.  We  may  on  the  one 
hand  have  to  do  with  a  dream-phantasy,  that  is, 
with  the  reproduction  of  fancies  that  have  developed 
in  waking  life,  articles  read  in  books  or  magazines, 
fragments  of  novels,  or  bits  of  conversation  spoken 
or  heard  by  the  person  himself.  A  deeper  and  more 
general  explanation  for  the  apparently  logical  ar- 
ticulation of  many  dreams,  however,  is  the  fact 
that  the  rationalising  tendency  of  mental  activity, 
which  seeks  to  arrange  senseless  material  into  logical 
trains  of  thought,  does  not  rest  at  night.  This  last 
activity  of  the  dream  Freud  calls  the  secondary  elab- 
oration. It  is  due  to  this  that  the  originally  frag- 
mentary parts  of  the  dream  are  rounded  into  a 
whole  by  supplementarily  inserted  connecting  words 
and  other  little  connections. 

x^ince  the  dream  has  fundamentally  condensed, 
displaced,  disguised,  and  scenically  presented  a 
dream-thought,  robbed  it  of  its  logical  connections, 
and  elaborated  it  in  a  secondary  manner,  the  work 
of  interpretation  is  often  very  difficult.  We  are  con- 
fronted by  the  conscious  dream-content  as  by  a 
hieroglyph  or  by  a  rebus  that  is  very  difficult  of 
solution ;  the  result  is  that  the  explanation  of  many 
dreams  needs,  besides  the  rules  of  Freud's  interpre- 
tation, special  capacity  and  inclination  to  occupy 
oneself  with  the  questions  of  mental  life. 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams 

Not  less  a  riddle  than  the  dream  itself  is  its  rapid 
fading  away  after  awakening.  When  we  awake,  the 
dream-images  so  toilsomely  built  up  at  night  collapse 
like  a  house  of  cards.  During  sleep  the  mind  is  like 
an  air-tight  room,  into  which  neither  light  nor  sound 
can  penetrate  from  without,  but  within  whose  own 
walls  the  slightest  sound,  even  the  buzzing  of  a  fly, 
can  be  heard.  But  awakening  is  like  opening  the 
door  to  the  air  of  the  bright  morning;  through  the 
doors  of  our  senses  press  in  the  bustle  and  the  im- 
pulses of  every-day  life,  and  the  daily  cares,  lately 
soothed  to  sleep  by  wish-fancies,  once  more  assert 
their  domination.  The  censor,  too,  wakens  from  its 
slumber,  and  its  first  act  is  to  declare  the  dream  to 
be  foolishness,  to  explain  it  as  senseless,  to  put  it 
as  it  were  under  guardianship.  It  is  not  always 
satisfied  with  this  measure,  it  reacts  much  more 
strongly  against  the  revolutionary  dreams  (and 
there  is  not  a  single  dream  that  cannot  be  shewn 
by  analysis  to  offend  against  some  ethical  or  legal 
canon).  The  stronger  method  consists  in  the  con- 
fiscation, the  full  suppression,  of  the  dream-image. 
Mental  confiscation  is  commonly  called  "forgetting.'* 
One  wonderingly  relates  how  distinctly  one  dreamed, 
and  yet  when  one  woke  all  was  confused  and  in  a  few 
minutes  it  had  all  been  forgotten.  At  other  times 
one  can  only  say  that  the  dream  was  beautiful,  good, 
bad,  confused,  stimulating,  or  stupid.  Even  in  mak- 
ing this  judgment  often  a  remnant  of  the  dream-con- 


128          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

tent  will  shew  itself,  the  analysis  of  which  may  lead 
to  a  later  recovery  of  larger  fragments  of  the  dream. 
Behind  the  additional  fragments  of  the  dream  thus 
brought  to  light  one  often  finds  the  kernel  of  the 
dream-thoughts. 

It  is  an  important  consequence  of  Freud's  theory 
of  dreams,  that  one  is  always  dreaming,  so  long  as 
one  sleeps.5  That  one  remembers  nothing  of  it  is 
no  decisive  objection  against  this  consideration.  My 
patients,  for  example,  who  at  the  beginning  of  the 
analysis  declared  that  they  usually  had  no  dreams, 
gradually  accustomed  themselves  to  remember  all 
their  dreams  by  continual  weakening  of  the  internal 
psychic  resistance  against  the  censorship.  But  if 
in  the  course  of  the  analysis  one  strikes  a  very  re- 
sistant, painfully  toned  complex,  dreams  apparently 
cease — naturally  they  are  only  forgotten,  repressed, 
because  of  their  unpleasant  content. 

The  obvious  objection  that  these  dream  observa- 
tions and  analyses  have  for  the  most  part  been 
carried  out  on  neurotic  and  thus  abnormal  persons, 
and  that  conclusions  should  not  be  drawn  as  to  the 
dreams  of  healthy  people,  does  not  need  to  be  refuted 
by  the  reply  that  mental  health  and  psychoneuroses 
differ  in  only  a  quantitative  way;  the  answer  can 

•  (This  remark  is  perhaps  carelessly  phrased.  The  author 
probably  means  that  unconscious  psychic  activity  always  goes 
on  during  sleep,  tending  to  lead  to  the  formation  of  dreams, 
not  that  we  are  always  actually  dreaming  in  the  sense  of  con- 
sciously experiencing  fully  formed  dreams.  TransL) 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams     129 

also  be  made  that  the  analyses  of  people  mentally 
normal  fully  agree  with  the  interpretations  of  dreams 
of  neurotics.  The  communication  of  the  analysis 
of  one's  own  dreams,  however,  meets  with  almost  in- 
surmountable difficulties.  Freud  has  not  shrunk 
from  this  sacrifice — the  exposure  of  intimate  per- 
sonal matters — in  his  Traumdeutung,  even  though 
regard  for  others  make  unavoidable  gaps  here  and 
there  in  his  analysis.  Similar  considerations  make 
it  necessary  for  me  to  explain  the  interpretation  of 
dreams  not  from  my  own  dreams,  but  from  those  of 
my  patients.  For  the  rest,  the  practice  of  self- 
analysis  is  indispensable  for  anyone  who  desires  to 
penetrate  into  the  unconscious  processes  of  dream 
life. 

The  neurotic  persons  whose  dreams  I  have  brought 
forward  here  and  there  as  examples  also  pave  the 
way  for  me  to  say  a  few  words  about  the  patho- 
logical significance  of  dreams  and  their  interpreta- 
tion. We  have  seen  how  greatly  the  analysis  of  a 
neurotic  may  be  accelerated  by  a  successful  dream 
analysis.  The  dream  censorship,  which  is  only  half 
awake,  often  allows  thought-complexes  to  penetrate 
to  the  dream  consciousness  that  in  waking  life  could 
not  be  brought  to  consciousness  by  free  association. 
From  the  dream  elements  also  lead  out  immediate 
and  shorter  ways  to  the  repressed  pathogenic  ma- 
terial, becoming  conscious  of  such  complexes  may  be 
regarded  as  a  step  towards  the  cure. 


130          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

Then,  too,  the  diagnostic  significance  of  dreams 
should  not  escape  us,  and  in  a  time  that  is  not  too 
distant  there  ought  to  arise  besides  the  physiological, 
also  a  pathological  dream  psychology,  which  should 
treat  systematically  of  dreams  among  hysterics,  ob- 
sessional patients,  paranoiacs,  dementia  praecox  pa- 
tients, sufferers  from  neurasthenia,  from  the  anxiety- 
neurosis,  alcoholism,  epilepsy,  paralysis,  etc.  Many 
pathognostic  peculiarities  of  dreams  in  these  dis- 
eased conditions  are  already  recognisable  to-day. 

All  these  more  practical  and  special  questions  have 
been  raised  to  importance  by  the  unexpected  theo- 
retical consequences  of  this  investigation  of  dreams. 
Freud  has  succeeded  in  surprising  a  process  on  the 
boundary  line  between  the  physiological  and  patho- 
logical departments  of  mental  life,  in  taking  it  in 
the  midst  of  its  work,  in  flagranti,  so  to  speak.  In 
this  way  he  has  brought  us  nearer  to  an  understand- 
ing of  the  mechanism  of  the  manifestations  of  neu- 
roses and  insanity  in  waking  life.  And  though  it 
was  the  study  of  psycho-neuroses  that  led  Freud  to 
his  investigation  of  dreams,  the  dream  theory  pays 
back  with  interest  all  that  it  owes  to  pathology. 

The  case  could  not,  indeed,  be  other  than  it  is. 
Waking  life,  dreams,  neuroses,  and  psychoses  are 
only  variations  of  the  same  psychic  material  with 
different  modes  of  functioning,  and  progressive  in- 
sight into  one  of  these  processes  must  necessarily 
deepen  and  widen  our  knowledge  of  the  others. 


The  Psychological  Analysis  of  Dreams    131 

Those  who  expect  from  the  new  dream  theory  any 
sort  of  prophetic  insight  into  the  future  will  turn 
back  disillusioned.  But  those  who  value  highly  the 
solution  of  psychological  problems  that  have  until 
now  been  set  aside  as  insoluble,  the  widening  of  the 
psychological  point  of  view  apart  from  any  imme- 
diate practical  consequences,  and  who  are  not  kept 
back  from  advance  by  hide-bound  prejudices,  will 
perhaps  supplement  the  presentation  given  here  by  a 
thorough  and  serious  study  of  Freud's  Traumdev- 
twng. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ON    OBSCENE    WORDS  l 

Contribution  to  the  Psychology  of  the  Latent  Period 

IN  all  analyses  one  is  sooner  or  later  fa^ed  with 
the  question  whether  one  should  mention  in  front 
of  the  patient  the  popular  (obscene)  designations 
of  the  sexual  and  excremental  organs,  functions, 
and  material,  and  get  him  to  utter  in  an  unvarnished, 
unaltered  way  the  obscene  words,  phrases,  curses, 
etc.,  that  occur  to  his  mind,  or  whether  one  can 
rest  content  with  allusions  to  them  or  with  the  use 
of  scientific  language  to  denote  such  matters. 

In  one  of  his  earlier  works  Freud  called  attention 
to  the  possibility  of  finding  ways  and  means  to  dis- 
cuss with  patients  even  the  most  proscribed  sexual 
activities  (perversions)  without  wounding  their  mod- 
esty, and  for  this  purpose  he  recommended  the  use 
of  technical  medical  expressions. 

At  the  beginning  of  a  course  of  psycho-analytic 
treatment  one  avoids  unnecessarily  provoking  re- 
sistance on  the  part  of  the  patient,  and  in  this  way 

1  Published    in    the    Zentralbl.    f.    Psychoanalyse,    Jahrg.    1, 
1911. 

132 


On  Obscene  Words 

setting  up  perhaps  insurmountable  obstacles  to  the 
continuation  of  the  analysis.  One  contents  oneself, 
therefore,  at  first  with  allusive  references  or  with 
serious  scientific  terms,  and  can  very  soon  talk  with 
one's  patient  about  the  most  delicate  matters  of 
sexuality,  as  of  the  instincts  in  general,  without  ex- 
citing any  reaction  of  shame  whatever.  In  a  number 
of  cases,  however,  this  does  not  suffice.  The  analysis 
comes  to  a  standstill,  no  thoughts  occur  to  the  pa- 
tient, his  behaviour  shews  signs  of  inhibition,  indica- 
tions of  increased  resistance  manifest  themselves,  and 
this  resistance  ceases  only  when  the  physician  man- 
ages to  discover  the  ground  for  it  in  the  fact  that 
proscribed  words  and  phrases  have  occurred  to  him, 
which  he  does  not  venture  to  utter  aloud  without  the 
analyst's  express  "permission." 

An  hysterical  patient  of  twenty-three,  for  exam- 
ple, who  so  far  as  consciousness  was  concerned  was 
intent  on  the  greatest  honesty,  and  who  listened 
without  much  prudishness  to  my  explanations  about 
her  sexuality  (formulated  in  scientific  language),  in- 
sisted that  she  had  never  heard  or  noticed  anything 
about  sexual  matters ;  she  still  professed  belief  in  the 
"kissing-theory"  of  propagation  (which,  by  the  way, 
is  always  a  secondary  one).  In  order  to  display 
her  assiduity,  she  bought  a  large  work  on  embryol- 
ogy and  related  to  me,  with  naive  interest  and  with- 
out any  inhibition,  her  recently  acquired  informa- 
tion concerning  spermatozoa  and  ova,  male  and  fe- 


184          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

male  sexual  organs  and  their  union.  On  one  occa- 
sion she  casually  told  me  that  ever  since  childhood 
she  had  had  the  habit  of  shutting  her  eyes  when  at 
stool.  She  could  give  no  reason  for  this  eccentricity. 
Finally  I  helped  her  memory  by  asking  if,  by  clos- 
ing her  eyes,  she  had  not  sought  to  shun  the  ob- 
scene writings  and  drawing  so  frequent  in  closets. 
I  then  had  to  direct  attention  to  the  obscene  writ- 
ings known  to  her,  and  this  evoked  in  the  patient, 
who  up  till  then  had  been  so  superior  and  imper- 
turbable, an  intense  reaction  of  shame,  which  gave 
me  access  to  the  deepest  layers  of  her  previously 
latent  store  of  memories.  The  repression,  therefore, 
evidently  appertained  to  the  wording  itself  of  the 
sexual  thought-complexes,  and  could  be  reversed  only 
by  uttering  those  "magic  words." 

A  young  homosexual,  who  without  much  ado  made 
use  of  even  the  vulgar  designations  for  the  sexual 
parts  and  their  functions,  refused  for  two  hours 
long  to  utter  aloud  the  commoner  expression  for  the 
word  "flatus"  which  had  occurred  to  him.  He  sought 
to  avoid  it  by  all  possible  circumlocutions,  foreign 
words,  euphemisms,  etc.  After  the  resistance  against 
the  word  was  overcome,  however,  he  was  able  to  pene- 
trate much  deeper  into  the  previously  barren  analy- 
sis of  his  anal-erotism. 

The  hearing  of  an  obscene  word  in  the  treatment 
often  produces  in  the  patient  the  same  agitation  that 
on  some  earlier  occasion  had  been  produced  by  ac- 


On  Obscene  Words  135 

cidentally  overhearing  a  conversation  between  the 
parents,  in  which  some  coarse  (usually  sexual)  ex- 
pression had  slipped  o^t.  This  agitation  and  shock, 
which  for  a  moment  seriously  threatens  the  child's 
respect  for  his  parents,  and  which  in  a  neurotic  may 
remain  "fixed"  for  life  (although  unconsciously), 
happens  as  a  rule  in  the  years  of  puberty  and  is 
really  a  "new  edition"  of  the  impressions  made  by 
overhearing  in  infancy  actual  sexual  performances. 
The  early  confidence  in  parents  and  superior  au- 
thorities, however,  which  the  latter  have  sought  to 
instil,  but  which  has  been  nullified  by  awe,  belongs 
to  the  most  significant  complexes  of  the  suppressed 
psychical  material,  and  if  one  does  not  shrink  from 
— and,  indeed,  insists  on — getting  the  patient  to 
express  the  very  wording  of  these  thoughts  (and, 
if  necessary,  to  utter  it  oneself),  it  often  results  in 
unexpected  disclosures  and  a  gratifying  progress  in 
the  mental  dissection,  which  had  perhaps  been  for 
some  time  at  a  standstill. 

Apart  from  this  practical  importance,  which,  by 
the  way,  is  not  to  be  underestimated,  the  behaviour 
of  the  patient  in  this  connection  is  also  a  matter  of 
more  general  interest.  It  gives  us  a  psychological 
problem. 

How  is  it  that  it  is  so  much  harder  to  designate 
the  same  thing  with  one  term  than  with  another? 
That  this  is  the  case  can  be  observed  not  only  with 
the  patient,  but  also  with  oneself.  Indeed,  it  was  the 


136          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

not  inconsiderable  inhibition  which  I  noticed,  to  be- 
gin with,  on  mentioning  such  words,  and  against 
which  I  have  even  now  occasionally  to  contend,  that 
led  me  to  devote  more  attention  to  this  question  and 
to  investigate  it  by  examining  myself  as  well  as  my 
patients.  By  both  of  these  ways  I  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  popular  (obscene)  designations  for 
sexuality  and  excretion,  the  only  ones  known  to  the 
child,  are  in  the  most  intimate  manner  associated 
with  the  deeply  repressed  nuclear  complex  of  the 
neurotic  as  well  as  of  the  healthy.  (Following 
Freud,  I  call  the  Oedipus-complex  the  "nuclear  com- 
plex.») 

The  child's  thoughts  about  the  sexual  aspects  of 
the  parents,  about  the  processes  of  birth  and  the 
animal  functions,  in  a  word,  the  "infantile  sexual 
theories,"  are,  as  soon  as  they  appear,  clothed  in 
the  popular  terminology  that  is  the  only  one  accessi- 
ble to  the  child.  The  moral  censorship  and  the  in- 
cest-barrier, which  later  on  covers  over  these  theo- 
ries, becomes  exerted,  therefore,  on  just  this  formu- 
lation of  the  hypotheses. 

This  would  suffice  to  make  comprehensible,  at  least 
in  part,  the  resistance  that  is  manifested  against  the 
mentioning  of,  and  listening  to,  such  words.  As, 
however,  this  explanation  did  not  quite  satisfy  me, 
I  looked  for  further  causes  of  the  special  quality  of 
these  word-ideas  and  reached  a  point  of  view  that  I 
cannot,  it  is  true,  regard  as  certainly  correct,  but 


On  Obscene  Words  137 

which  I  wish  to  communicate  here  in  order  to  prompt 
&ther  workers  to  bring  forward  a  better  explanation. 

An  obscene  word  has  a  peculiar  power  of  compel- 
ling the  hearer  to  imagine  the  object  it  denotes,  the 
sexual  organ  or  function,  in  substantial  actuality. 
That  this  is  the  case  was  clearly  recognised  and  ex- 
pressed by  Freud  in  his  discussion  of  the  motives  and 
conditions  of  obscene  jokes.  He  writes:2  "Through 
the  mentioning  of  the  obscene  word  the  ribald  jest 
forces  the  assailed  person  to  imagine  the  part  of  the 
body  or  the  function  in  question."  I  would  supple- 
ment this  statement  by  calling  special  attention  to 
the  fact  that  delicate  allusions  to  sexual  processes, 
and  scientific  or  foreign  designations  for  them,  do 
not  have  this  effect,  or  at  least  not  to  the  same 
extent  as  the  words  taken  from  the  original,  popu- 
lar, erotic  vocabulary  of  one's  mother-tongue. 

One  may  therefore  infer  that  these  words  as  such 
possess  the  capacity  of  compelling  the  hearer  to 
revive  memory  pictures  in  a  regressive  and  halluci- 
natory manner.  This  inference,  founded  on  self-ob- 
servation, is  confirmed  by  the  statements  of  a  con- 
siderable number  of  normal  as  well  as  of  neurotic 
individuals.  The  causes  of  the  phenomenon  must  be 
sought  for  in  the  hearer  himself,  and  we  have  to  as- 
sume that  he  harbours  in  his  store  of  memories  a 
number  of  word-sound  and  writing  images  of  erotic 

•  Freud.     Der  Witz  und  seine  Beziehung  zum  Unbewussten. 
S.  80. 


188          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

content  that  differ  from  other  word-pictures  in  their 
increased  tendency  to  regression.  On  hearing  or 
seeing  an  obscene  word  this  capacity  of  the  mem- 
ory-traces in  question  would  then  come  into  opera- 
tion. 

If,  now,  we  subscribe  to  Freud's  conception  of  the 
ontogenetic  development  of  the  psychical  mechan- 
ism out  of  a  motor-hallucinatory  reaction  centre  to 
an  organ  of  thought  (and  his  conception  is  the  only 
one  that  does  justice  to  the  results  of  psycho-analy- 
sis and  to  our  idea  of  the  unconscious),  we  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  obscene  words  have  attributes 
which  all  words  must  have  possessed  in  some  early 
stage  of  psychical  development. 

Ever  since  Freud's  work  3  we  regard  as  the  funda- 
mental cause  of  every  act  of  mental  representation 
the  wish  to  put  an  end  to  an  unpleasantness  due  to 
privation,  by  means  of  repeating  an  experience  of 
gratification  once  enjoyed.  If  this  need  is  not  satis- 
fied in  reality,  what  happens  in  the  first  primitive 
stage  of  mental  development  is  that  on  the  appear- 
ance of  the  wish  the  perception  of  the  previously  ex- 
perienced gratification  becomes  regressively  engaged 
(besetzt)  and  maintained  in  a  hallucinatory  way. 
The  idea  is  thus  treated  as  equivalent  to  the  reality 
(perceptual  identity,  as  Freud  terms  it).  Only 
gradually,  sharpened  by  bitter  experience  of  life, 

•Freud.  Die  Traumdeutung.  [The  view  in  question  is  ex- 
pounded in  an  article  in  Child  Study,  April  and  May,  1916. 
Transl.] 


On  Obscene  Words  139 

does  the  child  learn  to  distinguish  the  wish-idea  from 
real  gratification,  and  to  make  use  of  his  motor  pow- 
ers only  when  he  has  convinced  himself  that  he  sees 
in  front  of  him  real  objects,  and  not  illusions  of  his 
phantasy.  Abstract  thought,  thinking  in  words,  de- 
notes the  culminating  point  of  this  development.  In 
this,  as  Freud  has  set  forth  in  detail,  finer  accom- 
plishments are  rendered  possible  through  the  mem- 
ory images  being  represented  merely  by  certain 
qualitative  remains  of  these  images,  the  speech-signs. 

It  may  be  added  that  the  capacity  of  represent- 
ing wishes  by  means  of  speech  signs,  so  poor  in  qual- 
ity, is  not  acquired  all  at  once.  Apart  from  the 
fact  that  it  takes  some  time  to  learn  to  speak, 
it  seems  that  speech-signs  replacing  images,  i.  e., 
words,  retain  for  a  considerable  time  a  certain  tend- 
ency to  regression,  which  we  can  picture  to  our- 
selves in  a  gradually  diminishing  degree,  until  the 
capacity  is  attained  for  "abstract"  imagination  and 
thought  that  is  almost  completely  free  from  hal- 
lucinatory perceptual  elements. 

In  this  line  of  development  there  may  be  psychical 
stages  of  which  the  characteristic  is  that  the  already 
perfected  capacity  for  the  more  economic  form  of 
thought  by  means  of  speech-signs  is  accompanied 
with  a  still  existing,  strong  tendency  to  revive  re- 
gressively  the  image  of  the  object.  The  assumption 
that  such  stages  occur  is  supported  by  the  behaviour 
of  children  at  the  time  of  their  mental  development. 


140          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

Freud,  on  investigating  the  psychogenesis  of  the 
pleasure  afforded  by  wit,  recognised  the  significance 
of  the  child's  play  with  words.  "Children,"  he  says, 
"treat  words  as  objects." 

The  distinction,  not  yet  rigorously  carried  out, 
between  what  is  only  imagined  and  what  is  real, 
(».  e.  the  tendency  of  the  mind  to  relapse  into  the 
primary,  regressive  mode  of  functioning),  may  also 
make  the  special  charcter  of  obscene  words  compre- 
hensible, and  justify  the  surmise  that  at  a  certain 
stage  of  development  this  concreteness,  and  with  it 
probably  a  strong  tendency  to  regression,  applies 
still  to  all  words.  On  this,  indeed,  rests  Freud's  ex- 
planation of  dream  images ;  in  sleep  we  fall  back  on 
the  original  mode  of  mental  functioning,  and  once 
more  regressively  revive  the  perceptual  system  of 
consciousness.  In  dreams  we  no  longer  think  in 
words,  but  hallucinate. 

If  we  now  assume  that  this  development  from 
speech-signs,  still  endowed  with  many  concrete  ele- 
ments, in  the  direction  of  the  abstract  has  been  sub- 
ject to  a  disturbance,  an  interruption,  in  the  case 
of  certain  words,  which  results  in  a  lagging  of  the 
word-image  on  a  lower  level,  then  we  have  some 
prospect  of  approaching  an  understanding  of  the 
tendency  to  regression  which  is  so  marked  when  ob- 
scene words  are  heard. 

Not  only  the  hearing  of  obscene  words,  however, 
but  also  the  utterance  of  them  is  endued  with  quali- 


On  Obscene  Words  141 

ties  that  are  not  found  in  the  case  of  other  words, 
at  least  not  in  the  same  degree.  Freud  points  out, 
with  truth,  that  whoever  makes  an  obscene  joke  per- 
petrates, in  so  doing,  an  attack  (a  sexual  action) 
on  the  object  of  the  aggression,  and  evokes  the  same 
phenomena  of  reaction  as  those  which  would  have 
resulted  from  the  action  itself.  When  uttering  an 
obscene  word  one  has  the  feeling  that  it  is  almost 
equivalent  to  a  sexual  aggression :  "uncovering  of  the 
individual  who  interests  one  personally."  4  The  ut- 
terance of  an  obscene  joke,  therefore,  shews  in  a 
higher  degree  what  is  scarcely  indicated  with  most 
words,  namely,  the  original  source  of  all  speech  in 
pretermitted  action.  While  other  words,  however, 
contain  the  motor  element  of  the  word-image  only 
in  the  form  of  a  reduced  innervation  impulse,  the 
so-called  "mimicry  of  imagery," 5  on  uttering  an 
obscene  joke  we  still  have  the  definite  feeling  of  in- 
itiating an  act. 

This  marked  investment  of  the  vocal  image  of 
obscene  words  with  motor  elements,  as  also  the  sen- 
sorial  and  hallucinatory  character  of  the  heard  ob- 
scene joke,  may  be  the  result  of  a  disturbance  in  de- 
velopment. These  vocal  images  may  have  remained 
on  a  level  of  speech  development  where  words  are  still 
more  markedly  invested  with  motor  elements.  One 
has  here  to  ask  oneself  whether  this  speculation, 

•Freud.    Der  Witz.  S.  80. 
•  Ibid.  S.  167. 


142          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

which  represents  only  one  of  the  many  possibilities, 
is  in  any  way  supported  by  experience,  and  if  so, 
what  could  be  the  cause  of  this  developmental  error, 
one  which  concerns  a  small  group  of  words,  and  is 
of  general  occurrence  among  civilised  people. 

Psycho-analysis  of  normal  and  neurotic  persons, 
and  observation  of  children,  if  fearless  investigation 
is  made  of  the  fate  that  the  terms  for  sexual  and  ex- 
cremental  organs  and  functions  undergo  in  the 
course  of  mental  development,  bring  much  confirma- 
tion of  the  hypothesis  brought  forward  here.  In 
the  firrt  place,  confirmation  is  found  throughout  of 
the  almost  self-evident  assumption  that  the  specially 
strong  aversion  to  repeating  certain  obscene  words 
is  to  be  ascribed  to  strong  feelings  of  unpleasantness 
which  have  become  attached  to  just  those  words 
through  inversion  of  affect  in  the  course  of  child  de- 
velopment. 

A  young  man,  for  example,  who  was  on  the  whole 
normal,  although  he  was  noted  for  a  rather  exag- 
gerated strictness  in  morals  and  was  unusually  intol- 
erant of  obscene  words,  recollected  during  a  dream 
analysis  that  his  mother  caught  him,  when  he  was  six 
and  a  half  years  old,  writing  down  on  a  piece  of  pa- 
per a  dictionary,  so  to  speak,  of  all  the  obscene 
expressions  he  knew.  The  humiliation  of  being  thus 
detected,  especially  by  his  mother,  as  well  as  the  se- 
vere punishment  that  followed,  resulted  in  a  lack 
of  interest  in  erotic  matters  for  many  years  after 


On  Obscene  Wordt  143 

and  in  an  inimical  disposition  even  later  towards  the 
contents  of  the  erotic  vocabulary. 

The  young  homosexual  who  had  displayed  such 
strong  opposition  to  uttering  the  obscene  word  for 
"flatus"  developed  in  infancy  an  extraordinary  love 
of  odour  and  coprophilia,  and  his  over-lenient  fa- 
ther did  not  prevent  him  from  indulging  these  incli- 
nations even  on  his  own  body  (the  father's).  The 
association,  inseparable  from  this  time  forward,  of 
the  idea  of  defilement  with  that  of  the  parents  re- 
sulted in  an  unusually  strong  repression  of  the  pleas- 
ure in  dirt  and  smell;  hence  also  the  great  unpleas- 
antness in  mentioning  such  matters.  That  it  was 
the  obscene  term  for  intestinal  gas  which  was  so 
much  more  intolerable  to  him  than  any  circumlocu- 
tion had  its  reason  in  childhood  experiences  similar 
to  those  of  the  "dictionary-writer"  mentioned  above. 
The  intimate  connection  between  obscenity  and  the 
parental  complex  was  thus  the  strongest  repressing 
force  in  both  cases.6 

In  the  case  of  the  hysterical  patient  who  used  to 
shut  her  eyes  when  in  the  closet  this  habit  could  be 
traced  back  to  the  time  of  a  confession  at  which  she 
was  severely  reprimanded  by  the  priest  for  artlessly 
mentioning  the  obscene  term  for  the  vagina. 

Such  rebukes,  however,  or  similar  ones,  happen  to 
almost  every  child,  with  the  possible  exception  of 

•The  infantile  interest  for  the  sounds  accompanying  the 
emission  of  intestinal  gas  was  not  without  influence  on  his 
choice  of  profession.  He  became  a  musician. 


144          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

those  belonging  to  the  lowest  classes.  In  the  fourth 
or  fifth  year  of  life,  and  considerably  earlier  with 
precocious  children  (i.  e.,  at  a  time  when  children 
are  restricting  their  "polymorphous-perverse"  im- 
pulses), a  period  is  interpolated  between  the  relin- 
quishing of  the  infantile  modes  of  gratification  and 
the  beginning  of  the  true  latency  period,  one  char- 
acterised by  the  impulse  to  utter,  write  up,  and  listen 
to  obscene  words. 

This  fact  would  without  doubt  be  confirmed  by  a 
questionnaire  addressed  to  mothers  and  teachers, 
still  more  certainly  by  one  to  servants,  the  real  con- 
fidants of  children,  and  that  this  is  true  of  children 
not  only  in  Europe,  but  also  in  such  a  prudish  coun- 
try as  America,  I  recognised,  when  strolling  with 
Professor  Freud  in  New  York  Central  Park,  from 
the  chalk  drawings  and  inscriptions  on  a  beautiful 
marble  flight  of  steps. 

We  may  conceive  this  impulse  to  utter,  draw, 
write,  hear,  and  read  obscenities  as  being  a  prelimi- 
nary stage  in  the  inhibition  of  the  infantile  desires 
for  exposure  and  sexual  visual  curiosity.  It  is  the 
suppression  of  these  sexual  phantasies  and  actions, 
manifested  in  the  weakened  form  of  speech,  that  real- 
ly connotes  the  beginning  of  the  latency  period 
proper,  that  period  in  which  "the  mental  counter- 
forces  against  infantile  sexuality,  namely,  disgust, 
shame,  and  morality,  are  formed,"  7  and  the  child's 
1  Freud.  Kl.  Schr.,  2e  Aufl.,  S.  39. 


On  Obscene  Words  145 

interest  is  turned  in  the  direction  of  social  activities 
(desire  for  knowledge). 

One  is  hardly  likely  to  be  wrong  in  surmising  that 
this  suppression  of  obscene  word-images  occurs  at  a 
time  when  speech,  and  especially  the  sexual  vocabu- 
lary, which  is  so  strongly  invested  with  affect,  is  still 
characterised  by  a  high  degree  of  regressive  tend- 
ency and  by  a  vivid  "mimicry  of  imagery."  It  is, 
therefore,  no  longer  so  improbable  that  the  sup- 
pressed verbal  material  must,  in  consequence  of  the 
latency  period  (i.  e.  the  deflection  of  attention), 
remain  at  this  more  primitive  developmental  stage, 
while  the  rest  of  the  vocabulary  gradually  becomes, 
for  the  greater  part,  divested  of  its  hallucinatory 
and  motor  character  by  progressive  exercising  and 
training,  and  is  rendered  through  this  economy  suit- 
able for  higher  thought  activities. 

I  know,  however,  from  psycho-analysis  of  neuro- 
ses that  suppressed  or  repressed  psychical  material 
becomes  in  fact  through  the  blocking  of  association 
a  "foreign  body"  in  the  mental  life,  which  is  capable 
of  no  organic  growth  and  of  no  development,  and 
that  the  contents  of  these  "complexes"  do  not  par- 
ticipate in  the  development  and  constitution  of  the 
rest  of  the  individual.  I  might  bring  forward  here 
a  few  surprising  examples. 

Apprehension  about  the  smallness  and  consequent 
incapacity  of  the  copulatory  organ — or,  as  we  psy- 
cho-analysts are  accustomed  to  say,  "the  complex 


146  Contribution*  to  Psycho-Analysis 

of  the  small  penis" — is  especially  common  among 
neurotics,  and  far  from  rare  among  the  healthy.  In 
every  case  in  which  I  have  analysed  this  symptom 
the  explanation  was  as  follows:  All  those  who  suf- 
fered later  in  this  way  had  in  their  earliest  childhood 
occupied  themselves  to  an  unusual  degree  with  the 
phantasy  of  coitus  cum  matre  (or  with  a  corre- 
sponding older  person)  ;  in  doing  so  they  had  nat- 
urally been  distressed  at  the  idea  of  the  inadequacy 
of  their  penis  for  this  purpose.8  The  latency  period 
interrupted  and  suppressed  this  group  of  thoughts; 
when,  however,  the  sexual  impulse  unfolded  itself 
afresh  in  puberty,  and  interest  was  again  directed 
towards  the  copulatory  organ,  the  old  distress  once 
more  emerged,  even  when  the  actual  size  of  the  or- 
gan was  normal  or  exceeded  the  average.  While, 
therefore,  the  penis  developed  in  the  normal  way, 
the  idea  of  the  penis  remained  at  an  infantile  level. 
The  deflection  of  attention  from  the  genital  region 
led  the  individual  to  take  no  note  of  the  changes  in 
it. 

I  have  similarly  been  able  to  observe  among  fe- 
male patients  a  "complex  of  the  vagina  being  too 
small"  (fear  that  it  would  be  torn  during  sexual 
intercourse),  and  have  been  able  to  explain  it 
through  the  idea  of  the  relative  size  of  the  paternal 

•  The  condition  for  this  apprehensive  phantasy  is  the  igno- 
rance of  the  extensibility  of  the  vagina;  children  only  know 
that  coitus  takes  place  in  an  opening  through  which  they  once 
passed  in  toto  at  birth. 


On  Obscene  Words  147 

organ,  an  idea  acquired  in  childhood  and  suppressed 
in  the  latency  period.  Such  women  are  then  sex- 
ually anaesthetic  in  consequence  of  the  imaginary 
smallness  of  the  penis  in  their  husbands. 

As  a  third  example  of  the  effect  of  the  latency  pe- 
riod in  inhibiting  development  in  an  isolated  manner 
I  may  mention  the  "complex  of  the  large  breast": 
The  dissatisfaction  that  many  men  feel  with  the  di- 
mensions of  most  female  breasts.  With  one  patient, 
whose  sex  hunger  could  be  aroused  only  by  quite 
enormously  developed  female  breasts,  it  was  estab- 
lished in  the  analysis  that  in  his  early  childhood  he 
had  taken  an  extraordinary  interest  in  the  suckling 
of  infants  and  had  indulged  in  the  secret  wish  that 
he  might  share  with  them.  In  the  latency  period 
these  fancies  disappeared  from  his  consciousness, 
but  when  he  began  once  more  to  take  an  interest  in 
the  opposite  sex  his  wishes  were  constellated  by  the 
complex  of  the  large  breast.  The  idea  of  the  breast 
had  not  developed  in  him  during  the  intermediary 
period,  and  the  impression  of  size  which  the  organ 
must  have  made  on  the  child,  who  was  then  so  little, 
had  become  fixed.  Hence  he  desired  only  women 
whose  breasts  corresponded  with  the  old  proportion 
of  his  own  smallness  to  the  size  of  the  woman.  The 
female  breasts  themselves  had  become  relatively 
smaller  in  the  intermediary  period,  but  the  fixed  idea 
of  them  retained  the  old  dimension. 

These  examples,  which  could  easily  be  multiplied, 


148          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

support  the  assumption  that  the  latency  period  ac- 
tually brings  about  an  isolated  inhibition  in  the  de- 
velopment of  individual  repressed  complexes,  and 
this  makes  it  seem  likely  that  the  same  process  hap- 
pens in  the  development  of  verbal  images  that  have 
become  latent.  Apart  from  this  inference  from  an- 
alogy, however,  I  wish  to  mention  the  fact,  which 
has  often  been  demonstrated  from  the  side  of  ex- 
perimental psychology,  that  young  children  are  of 
a  pronouncedly  "visual"  and  "motor"  reaction  type. 
I  surmise  that  the  loss  of  this  visual  and  motor  char- 
acter comes  about  not  gradually,  but  in  a  series  of 
stages,  and  that  the  advent  of  the  latency  period 
denotes  one,  and  perhaps  the  most  important  one, 
of  these  stages.9 

•  I  can  bring  forward  two  further  series  of  observations  in 
favour  of  the  correctness  of  my  supposition  concerning  the 
influence  of  the  latency  period.  In  a  number  of  cases  I  have 
had  the  opportunity  of  investigating  the  cause  of  lack  of 
capacity  for  visual  representation  and  the  resulting  incom- 
petency  for  certain  subjects  of  school  study  that  demand  a 
capacity  for  spacial  presentation  (geometry,  natural  history). 
It  appeared  that  this  incapacity,  which  was  out  of  correspond- 
ence with  the  other  powers  of  comprehension,  was  not  con- 
ditioned by  a  congenital  partial  weakness,  but  came  about  only 
after  the  repression  of  phantasies,  mostly  of  an  incestuous 
nature,  that  had  been  over-exuberant.  To  secure  (Adler)  the 
repression  of  certain  phantasy-pictures  all  kind  of  conscious 
fancying,  even  the  imaginative  representation  of  quite  indif- 
ferent objects,  was  instinctively  avoided.  (Dread  of  the  im- 
agination.) 

Another  neurotic  symptom,  which  may  be  observed  much 
more  frequently,  is  exaggerated  calm  and  grave  precision  in 
the  carrying  out  of  every  action,  of  every  movement,  shewn  also 
in  the  whole  attitude  and  in  the  dread  of  all  hurry  and  haste. 
It  is  usually  accompanied  with  pronounced  antipathy  against 
those  people  who  "let  themselves  go"  easily,  who  are  immod- 


On  Obscene  Words  149 

Little  can  be  said  at  present  concerning  the  fate  of 
the  repressed  obscene  verbal  images  during  the  lat- 
ency  period.  From  what  I  have  gathered  in  self- 
analysis  and  in  the  analyses  of  other  normal  people, 
I  think  I  am  justified  in  inferring  that  the  latency 
of  these  images,  especially  with  men,  is  normally  not 
an  absolute  one.  The  reversal  of  affect  that  occurs 
sees  to  it,  it  is  true,  that  attention  is  deflected  so  far 
as  possible  from  these  verbal  images  that  are  in- 
vested with  unpleasantness,  but  a  total  forgetting,  a 
becoming  unconscious  of  them,  scarcely  happens  in 
the  normal.  Everyday  life,  intercourse  with  the 
lower  classes  and  with  servants,  obscene  inscriptions 
on  benches  and  in  public  urinals,  see  to  it  that  this 
latency  gets  broken  through  often  enough  and  that 
the  memory  of  what  has  been  put  aside  gets  revived, 
although  the  point  of  view  is  changed.  Nevertheless 
not  much  notice  is  paid  to  these  memories  for  some 
years,  and  when  they  once  more  make  their  appear- 
ance at  the  time  of  puberty  they  are  already  in- 

erate,  hasty,  lively,  unthinking  and  frivolous.  One  might  here 
speak  of  phobia  of  movement.  This  symptom  is  a  reaction- 
formation  against  a  strong,  but  suppressed,  motor  tendency 
to  aggression. 

Both  the  dread  of  imagining  and  that  of  movement  seem  to 
me  to  be  exaggerations  of  the  suppression  of  phantasy  and 
the  inhibition  of  motility  that  comes  to  everybody  in  the  la- 
tency period,  and  which  helps  to  purge  the  motor  and  hallucina- 
tory elements  even  from  the  images  that  are  capable  of  being 
conscious.  The  images,  however,  that  are  incapable  of  being 
conscious,  the  repressed  or  suppressed  ones,  and  especially 
the  obscene  verbal  images,  retain,  as  does  all  repressed  ma- 
terial, the  characters  of  a  more  primitive  type  of  imagination. 


150          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

vested  with  the  character  of  shamefulness,  perhaps 
also  with  that  of  foreignness  (on  account  of  their 
plasticity  and  natural  vividness),  which  they  retain 
throughout  life. 

Quite  other  is  the  historical  development  of  these 
verbal  images  among  the  perverse  and  neurotic. 

Whoever  has  become  perverse,  through  his  sexual 
constitution  and  experiences,  will,  as  we  might  ex- 
pect according  to  Freud's  theory  of  sex,  take  pos- 
session of  this  source  of  pleasure  also,  and  become 
cynical  in  his  speech,  or  perhaps  content  himself 
merely  with  reading  coarse  obscenities.  There  ex- 
ists, indeed,  a  perversity  of  its  own  that  consists  in 
the  uttering  aloud  of  obscene  words;  I  know  from 
the  analysis  of  several  women  that  they  have  been 
insulted  in  the  street  by  well-dressed  men,  who  whis- 
pered obscene  words  to  them  in  passing  by,  without 
any  other  sexual  advances  being  made  (  such  as  offer- 
ing to  accompany,  etc.).  These  are  evidently  mild 
exhibitionists  and  voyeurs,  who  instead  of  actual 
exposure  content  themselves  with  an  act  that  has 
been  weakened  into  the  form  of  speech,  and  who 
in  doing  so  select  those  words  that  (through  their 
being  forbidden,  as  through  their  motor  and  plastic 
attributes)  are  especially  calculated  to  evoke  the  re- 
action of  shame.  This  perversity  might  be  called 
"coprophemia."  10 

10  "Coprolalia,"  on  the  contrary,  is  the  involuntary,  obsessive 
expelling  of  obscene  words,  as  may  happen,  for  instance,  in 
severe  cases  of  tic  convulsif. 


On  Obscene  Words  151 

The  true  neurotic  turns  his  attention  away  from 
obscene  words,  either  completely  or  almost  complete- 
ly. Wherever  possible  he  passes  them  by  without 
thinking  of  them,  and  when  he  cannot  avoid  them  he 
responds  with  an  exaggerated  reaction  of  shame  and 
disgust.  The  case  mentioned  above  is  rare,  where 
the  words  get  totally  forgotten.  Only  women  shew 
such  a  capacity  for  repression. 

A  very  severe  mental  shock,  however,  can  bring 
about  the  re-appearance  of  these  half-buried  words 
in  the  normal  as  well  as  in  the  neurotic.  Then,  just 
as  the  Olympian  gods  and  goddesses  were  degraded 
to  demons  and  witches  after  the  great  step  in  repres- 
sion betokened  by  Christianity,  so  the  words  that 
once  denoted  the  most  highly  treasured  objects  of 
infantile  pleasure  recur  in  the  form  of  oaths  and 
curses,  and,  characteristically,  associated  very  often 
with  the  idea  of  the  parents  or  the  sacred  beings  and 
gods  that  correspond  to  them  (blasphemies).  These 
interjections  that  issue  in  vehement  anger,  which  are 
often  softened  down  to  jokes  also,  do  not  at  all  be- 
long, as  Kleinpaul  rightly  insists,  to  conceptual 
speech ;  they  do  not  serve  the  needs  of  conscious  com- 
munication, but  represent  reactions  to  a  stimulus 
which  are  nearly  related  to  gestures.  It  is  none  the 
less  remarkable,  however,  that  a  violent  affect  is 
only  with  considerable  difficulty  saved  from  discharg- 
ing itself  along  a  motor  path  and  is  turned  into  an 
oath;  the  affect  involuntarily  makes  use  of  the  ob- 


152          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

scene  words  that  are  best  suited  to  the  purpose  from 
the  strength  of  their  affect  and  their  motor  force. 
Quite  tragical  are  the  cases  in  which  obscene 
words  abruptly  burst  forth  into  the  virtuous  con- 
sciousness of  a  neurotic.  Naturally  this  can  hap- 
pen only  in  the  form  of  obsessive  ideas,  for  they  are 
so  completely  foreign  to  the  conscious  emotional  life 
of  the  psycho-neurotic  that  he  feels  them  to  be  mere- 
ly absurd,  senseless,  pathological  ideas,  "foreign 
bodies,"  and  can  in  no  way  recognise  them  as  a  war- 
rantable content  of  his  vocabulary.  If  one  were  not 
prepared  by  what  has  already  been  mentioned  here, 
one  would  be  faced  with  an  insoluble  riddle  in  the 
fact  that  obsessive  ideas  of  obscene  words,  and  es- 
pecially of  words  denoting  the  most  despised  ex- 
cretions and  excretory  organs  in  a  coarse  way,  fre- 
quently appear  in  men  after  the  death  of  their  fa- 
ther, in  men,  in4eed,  who  adoringly  loved  and  hon- 
oured their  father.  Analysis  then  shews  that  on  the 
death,  in  addition  to  the  frightful  pain  at  the  loss, 
the  unconscious  triumph  at  being  freed  at  last  from 
all  constraint  comes  to  expression,  and  the  con- 
tempt for  the  "tyrant"  who  has  now  become  harm- 
less displays  itself  in  words  that  were  most  strictly 
forbidden  to  the  child.11  I  have  observed  a  similar 
case  with  a  girl  whose  eldest  sister  became  danger- 
ously ill. 

11  As  associative  links  between  the  conceptions  of  death 
and  excrement  one  often  finds  the  ideas  concerning  the  de- 
composition of  the  corpse. 


On  Obscene  Words  153 

An  important  support  for  my  supposition  that 
obscene  words  remain  "infantile"  as  the  result  of  in- 
hibited development,  and  on  this  account  have  an 
abnormal  motor  and  regressive  character,  would  be 
the  ethnographic  confirmation.  Unfortunately  I 
have  not  sufficient  experience  on  this  point.  What  I 
know  of  the  life  of  the  lower  classes,  and  especially 
of  the  gypsies,  seems  to  indicate  that  among  unculti- 
vated people  obscene  words  are  perhaps  more  mark- 
edly invested  with  pleasure,  and  do  not  differ  so  es- 
sentially from  the  rest  of  the  vocabulary,  as  com- 
pared with  the  state  of  affairs  among  the  culti- 
vated. 

Whether  further  observation  will  support  or  prove 
incorrect  the  assumption  of  a  specific  infantile  char- 
acter of  obscene  verbal  images,  and  of  "primitive" 
attributes  resulting  from  a  disturbance  in  develop- 
ment, I  think  I  can  at  least  maintain  after  what 
has  been  said  that  these  highly  affective  images  have 
a  significance  in  our  mental  life  which  has  not  up 
to  the  present  received  corresponding  attention. 


CHAPTER  V 

ON    THE    PAET    PLAYED    BY    HOMOSEXUALITY    IN    THE 
PATHOGENESIS   OF    PARANOIA  X 

IN  the  summer  of  1908  I  had  the  opportunity  of 
opening  up  the  problem  of  paranoia  in  the 
course  of  conversation  with  Professor  Freud,  and  we 
arrived  at  certain  tentative  ideas,  which  for  the  main 
part  were  developed  by  Professor  Freud,  while  I  con- 
tributed to  the  final  shaping  of  the  train  of  thought 
with  detached  suggestions  and  criticisms.  We  laid 
down  to  begin  with  that  the  mechanism  of  projec- 
tion, as  explicated  by  Freud  in  the  only  case  of 
paranoia  at  that  time  analysed,  is  characteristic  of 
paranois  in  general.  We  assumed  further  that  the 
paranoiac  mechanism  stands  midway  between  the 
opposite  mechanisms  of  neurosis  and  of  dementia 
praecox.  The  neurotic  gets  rid  of  the  affects  that 
have  become  disagreeable  to  him  by  means  of  the 
different  forms  of  displacement  (conversion,  trans- 
ference, substitution  )  ;  the  patient  suffering  from  de- 
mentia praecox,  on  the  other  hand,  detaches  his  in- 

'  Published  in  the  Jahrbuch  der  Psychoanalyse,  Band  III, 
1912. 

154 


Homosexuality  in  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia      155 

tcrest  from  objects  ~  and  retracts  it  to  his  ego  (au- 
to-erotism, grandiose  delusions). 

The  paranoiac  also  would  make  an  attempt  to 
withdraw  his  participation  (in  external  interests), 
but  it  meets  with  only  a  limited  success.  Some  of 
the  desires  get  happily  retracted  into  the  ego — 
grandiose  delusions  occur  in  every  case  of  para- 
noia— but  a  greater  part  of  the  interest,  varying  in 
amount,  cannot  disengage  itself  from  its  original  ob- 
ject, or  else  returns  to  it.  This  interest,  however,  has 
become  so  incompatible  with  the  ego  that  it  gets  ob- 
jectified (with  a  reversal  of  affect,  t.  e.  with  a  "neg- 
ative sign  in  front")  and  thus  cast  out  from  the 
ego.  The  tendency  that  has  become  intolerable,  and 
has  been  withdrawn  from  its  object,  in  this  way 
returns  from  its  love-object  in  the  form  of  a  per- 
ception of  its  own  negative.  The  feeling  of  love  is 
turned  into  the  sensation  of  its  opposite. 

The  expectation  that  further  observation  would 
verify  the  correctness  of  these  assumptions  has  been 
fulfilled.  The  cases  of  paranoid  dementia  published 
by  Maeder  in  the  last  volume  of  the  Jahrbuch  con- 
firm Freud's  assumptions  to  a  very  considerable  ex- 
tent. Freud  himself  by  further  studies  has  been  able 
to  confirm  not  only  this  leading  formula  of  paranoia, 
but  also  certain  finer  details  that  we  presuppose  in 

•Cp.  Abraham,  "Die  psychosexuellen  Differenzen  der  Hys- 
teric und  der  Dementia  praecox,"  Zentralbl.  f.  Nervenheilk.  u. 
Psych.,  Juli,  1908. 


156           Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

the  psychical  mechanism  of  the  different  kinds  of 
paranoia. 

The  aim  of  the  present  publication,  however,  is 
not  the  opening  up  of  the  whole  question  of  paranoia 
(to  which  Professor  Freud  himself  is  devoting  a 
larger  work3),  but  only  the  communication  of  an 
experiential  fact  which  the  analysis  of  several  para- 
noiacs  has  yielded,  and  which  goes  beyond  the  an- 
ticipated ideas  mentioned  above. 

It  has  become  evident,  namely,  that  t he  paranoiac 
mechanism  is  not  set  in  action  as  a  defence  against 
all  possible  attachments  of  the  "sexual  hunger," 
but,  according  to  the  observations  made  up  to  the 
present,  »*  directed  only  against  the  homosexual 
choice  of  object. 

Homosexuality  played  a  strikingly  great  part  in 
the  case  of  the  paranoiac  analysed  long  ago  by 
Freud,  a  part  not  adequately  appreciated  by  him  at 
that  time.4  In  Maeder's  investigations  into  cases 

•Jahrb.,  Bd.  III.  Reprinted  in  Sammlung  kl.  Schr.,  3e 
Folge. 

4  "When  she  was  alone  with  the  servant"  she  "had  a  sen- 
sation in  the  lower  part  of  the  body,  which  made  her  think 
that  the  maid  then  had  an  indecent  thought." — She  had  "hallu- 
cinations of  female  nudities,  especially  of  an  exposed  female 
lap  with  hair,  occasionally  also  of  male  genitals." — "When- 
ever she  was  in  a  woman's  company  she  constantly  got  the 
torturing  sensations  of  seeing  her  indecently  exposed,  and 
believed  that  in  the  same  moment  the  woman  had  the  same 
sensation  about  her." — "The  first  pictures  of  female  laps  came 
a  few  seconds  after  she  had  in  fact  seen  a  number  of  un- 
dressed women  at  the  baths." — "Everything  became  plain  to 
her  as  soon  as  her  sister-in-law  uttered  something,"  etc. 
(Freud,  Sammlung  kl.  Schr.,  S.  124.) 


Homosexriality  in  Pathogen-esis  of  Paranoia       157 

of  paranoid  dementia  also  "undoubted  homosexual 
tendencies"  5  were  discovered  behind  one  patient's 
delusions  of  persecution. 

The  observation  of  several  cases,  presently  to  be 
related,  seems  to  justify  the  surmise  that  in  the 
pathogenesis  of  paranoia,  homosexuality  plays  not 
a  chance  part,  but  the  most  important  one,  and  that 
paranoia  is  perhaps  nothing  else  at  all  than  dis- 
guised homosexuality. 


The  first  case  occurred  in  the  husband  of  my  own 
housekeeper,  a  well-built  man  of  about  thirty-eight, 
whom  I  had  occasion  to  observe  exhaustively  for  sev- 
eral months. 

He  and  his  wife  (who  could  hardly  be  called 
pretty),  who  had  got  married  just  before  entering 
my  service,  occupied  a  part  of  my  flat  consisting  of 
one  room  and  the  kitchen.6  The  husband  worked 
all  day  (he  was  an  employee  in  the  post-office), 
came  home  punctually  in  the  evening,  and  in  the 
first  part  of  his  time  with  me  gave  no  grounds  for 
complaint.  On  the  contrary,  he  impressed  me  by 
his  extraordinary  diligence  and  his  great  politeness 
to  myself.  He  always  found  something  in  my  rooms 
to  clean  and  embellish.  I  would  come  across  him 

"Jahrb.,  Bd.  II,  S.  237. 

•  It  is  customary  here  in  Budapest  to  get  a  reliable  married 
couple  to  look  after  one's  residence. 


158  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

late  at  night  putting  fresh  polish  on  the  doors  or 
floors,  burnishing  the  top  window-panes  that  could 
hardly  be  reached,  or  arranging  some  ingenious  nov- 
elty in  the  bathroom.  He  was  most  desirous  of  giv- 
ing me  satisfaction,  obeyed  all  my  instructions  with 
military  smartness  and  punctuality,  but  was  ex- 
tremely sensitive  to  any  criticism  on  my  part,  for 
which,  it  is  true,  he  rarely  gave  any  occasion. 

One  day  the  housekeeper  sobbingly  told  me  that 
she  lived  very  unhappily  with  her  husband.  He  was 
drinking  a  great  deal  latterly,  came  home  late,  and 
constantly  scolded  and  abused  her  without  cause. 
At  first  I  did  not  want  to  interfere  in  this  domestic 
affair,  but  when  I  accidentally  heard  that  he  was 
beating  his  wife  (which  fact  the  woman  had  con- 
cealed from  me  for  fear  of  losing  her  place),  I  spoke 
to  him  seriously  and  insisted  he  should  abstain  from 
alcohol  and  treat  his  wife  well,  all  of  which  he  tear- 
fully promised  me.  When  I  offered  to  shake  hands 
with  him  I  could  not  prevent  his  impetuously  kiss- 
ing my  hand.  I  ascribed  this  at  the  time,  however, 
to  his  emotion  and  to  my  "paternal"  attitude  (al- 
though I  was  younger  than  he). 

After  this  scene  peace  prevailed  in  the  house  for  a 
time.  A  few  weeks  later,  however,  the  same  scenes 
were  repeated,  and  when  I  now  looked  at  the  man 
more  carefully  I  saw  evident  signs  of  chronic  alco- 
holism. On  this  I  interrogated  the  woman  and  learnt 
from  her  that  she  was  constantly  being  accused  by 


Homosexuality  m  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia       159 

her  husband  of  marital  infidelity,  without  the  slight- 
est ground.  The  suspicion  naturally  occurred  to  me 
at  once  that  the  husband  was  suffering  from  alco- 
holic delusions  of  jealousy,  the  more  so  since  I  knew 
the  housekeeper  to  be  a  very  respectable  and  modest 
person.  I  managed  once  more  to  get  the  husband 
to  give  up  drinking,  and  to  restore  peace  in  the 
house  for  a  while. 

The  state  of  affairs,  however,  soon  changed  for  the 
worse.  It  became  clear  that  we  had  to  deal  with  a 
case  of  alcoholic  paranoia.  The  man  neglected  his 
wife,  and  stayed  in  the  public-house  drinking  till 
midnight.  On  coming  home  he  beat  his  wife,  abused 
her  incessantly,  and  accused  her  of  flirting  with 
every  male  patient  who  came  to  see  me.  I  learnt 
subsequently  that  he  was  even  at  this  time  jealous 
also  of  me,  but  his  wife,  from  a  comprehensible  anx- 
iety, concealed  this  from  me.  I  was  naturally  un- 
able to  keep  the  couple  any  longer,  but  I  allowed  the 
woman,  at  her  request,  to  retain  her  position  until 
the  quarter  was  up. 

It  was  now  that  I  learnt  all  the  details  of  these 
domestic  scenes.  The  husband,  whom  I  called  to 
account,  absolutely  denied  having  beaten  his  wife, 
although  this  had  been  confirmed  by  people  who  had 
witnessed  it.  He  maintained  that  his  wife  was  a 
lascivious  woman,  a  sort  of  vampire  that  "sucked  out 
a  man's  force;"  that  he  har1  relations  with  her  five 
or  six  times  every  night,  that  this  was  never  enough 


160          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

for  her,  however,  so  that  she  committed  adultery 
with  every  possible  man.  During  this  explanation 
the  emotional  scene  described  above  was  repeated; 
he  took  possession  again  of  my  hand,  and  kissed  it 
amid  tears.  He  said  he  had  never  known  anyone 
dearer  or  kinder  than  I. 

As  his  case  began  to  interest  me  from  a  psychia- 
tric point  of  view  also,  I  learnt  from  the  woman 
that  the  man  had  had  sexual  relations  with  her  only 
two  or  three  times  since  they  were  married.  Now 
and  then  he  would  make  preparations  in  this  direc- 
tion— mostly  a  tergo — and  then  push  her  away,  de- 
claring in  abusive  language  ^that  she  was  a  whore, 
and  that  she  could  do  it  with  anyone  she  liked,  but 
not  with  him. 

I  began  to  play  an  increasingly  important  part 
in  his  delusions.  He  wanted  to  force  his  wife,  un- 
der the  threat  of  stabbing  her,  to  confess  she  had 
had  sexual  relations  with  me.  Every  morning  when 
I  went  out  he  burst  into  my  bedroom,  sniffed  the 
bed-clothes,  and  then  beat  his  wife,  asserting  he  had 
recognised  her  odour  in  the  bedding.  He  tore  from 
her  a  head-kerchief  I  had  brought  back  for  her  from 
a  holiday,  and  stroked  it  several  times  a  day;  he 
was  not  to  be  parted  from  a  tobacco-pipe  that  I 
had  made  him  a  present  of.  If  I  was  in  the  water- 
closet  he  listened  all  the  time  in  the  ante-room,  then 
related  to  his  wife  with  obscene  words  what  he  had 
heard,  and  asked  her  "if  it  pleased  her."  He  then 


Homosexuality  m  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia      161 

hurried  into  the  closet  immediately  after  me,  to  see 
whether  I  had  "properly  rinsed  everything  away." 

All  this  time  he  remained  the  most  zealous  servant 
you  could  think  of,  and  was  exaggeratedly  amiable 
towards  me.  He  turned  to  account  my  absence  from 
Budapest  and  without  instructions  repainted  the 
water-closet,  even  adorning  the  walls  with  coloured 
sketches. 

The  fact  that  they  had  been  discharged  was  kept 
private  from  him  for  a  time.  When  he  heard  of  it  he 
became  sad,  abused  and  hit  his  wife,  and  threatened 
that  he  would  put  her  in  the  street  and  stab  me, 
"her  darling."  Even  now  he  remained  well-behaved 
and  devoted  so  far  as  I  personally  was  concerned. 
When  I  learned,  however,  that  he  was  sleeping  at 
night  with  a  well-ground  kitchen  knife  at  his  side  and 
on  one  occasion  seriously  looked  like  forcing  his  way 
into  my  bedroom,  I  felt  I  could  not  wait  the  two  or 
three  days  till  their  notice  was  up.  The  woman 
notified  the  authorities,  who  took  him  to  the  insane 
asylum  after  having  him  medically  certified. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  this  was  a  case  of  alcoholic 
delusions  of  jealousy.  The  conspicuous  feature  of 
homosexual  transference  to  myself,  however,  allows 
of  the  interpretation  that  this  jealousy  of  men  sig- 
nified only  the  projection  of  his  own  erotic  pleasure 
in  the  male  sex.  Also,  the  disinclination  for  sexual 
relations  with  his  wife  was  probably  not  simply  im- 
potency,  but  was  determined  by  his  unconscious 


162          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

homosexuality.  The  alcohol,  which  might  well  be 
called  a  censure-poison,  had  evidently  for  the  most 
part  (though  not  quite)  robbed  his  homosexuality, 
which  had  been  spiritualised  into  friendliness,  as- 
siduity and  complaisance,  of  its  sublimations,  and  so 
caused  the  crude  homosexual  erotism  that  thus  came 
to  the  surface — intolerable  as  such  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  man  of  ethical  high  standing — to  be  sim- 
ply imputed  to  his  wife.  In  my  opinion  the  alcohol 
played  here  only  the  part  of  an  agent  destroying 
sublimation,  through  the  effect  of  which  the  man's 
true  sexual  constitution,  namely  the  preference  for 
a  member  of  the  same  sex,  became  evident. 

It  was  only  subsequently  that  I  received  a  com- 
plete confirmation  of  this.  I  learnt  that  he  had  been 
married  before,  years  ago.  He  lived  only  a  short 
time  in  peace  with  his  first  wife  also,  began  to  drink 
soon  after  the  wedding,  and  abused  his  wife,  tor- 
menting her  with  jealousy  scenes,  until  she  left  him 
and  got  a  divorce. 

In  the  interval  between  these  two  marriages  he 
was  said  to  have  been  a  temperate,  reliable,  and 
steady  man,  and  to  have  taken  again  to  drink  only 
after  the  second  marriage.  Alcoholism  was  thus 
not  the  deeper  cause  of  the  paranoia;  it  was  rather 
that  in  the  insoluble  conflict  between  his  conscious 
heterosexual  and  unconscious  homosexual  desires  he 
took  to  alcohol,  which  then  by  destroying  the  subli- 
mations brought  the  homosexual  erotism  to  the  sur- 


Homosexuality  in  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia       163 

face,  his  consciousness  getting  rid  of  this  by  way 
of  projection,  of  delusions  of  jealousy. 

The  destruction  of  the  sublimation  was  not  com- 
plete. He  was  still  able  to  let  a  part  of  his  homo- 
sexual tendency  function  in  a  spiritualised  form,  as 
a  faithful,  compliant  servant  of  his  master,  as  *a 
smart  subordinate  in  his  office,  and  as  a  competent 
worker  in  both  positions.  Where  the  circumstances 
made  high  claims  on  his  capacity  for  sublimation, 
however, — for  instance,  in  his  occupation  with  the 
bedroom  and  closet — he  was  compelled  to  saddle  his 
wife  with  his  desires,  and  by  jealousy  scenes  to  as- 
sure himself  that  he  was  in  love  with  her.  The 
boasting  about  his  colossal  potency  in  regard  to 
his  wife  was  similarly  a  distortion  of  the  facts  that 
served  to  calm  his  mind.7 

II 

I  shall  cite  as  a  second  case  that  of  a  lady,  still 
young,  who  after  living  for  years  in  moderate  har- 

*  The  one-sided  agitation  of  temperance  reformers  tries  to 
veil  the  fact  that  in  the  large  majority  of  cases  alcoholism  is 
not  the  cause  of  neuroses,  but  a  result  of  them,  and  a.  ca- 
lamitous one.  Both  individual  and  social  alcoholism  can  be 
cured  only  by  the  help  of  psycho-analysis,  which  discloses  the 
causes  of  the  "flight  into  narcosis"  and  neutralises  them.  The 
eradication  of  alcoholism  only  seemingly  signifies  an  improve- 
ment in  hygiene.  When  alcohol  is  withdrawn,  there  remain  at 
the  disposal  of  the  psyche  numerous  other  paths  to  the 
"flight  into  disease."  And  when  then  psychoneurotics  suffer 
from  anxiety-hysteria  or  dementia  praecox  instead  of  from 
alcoholism,  one  regrets  the  enormous  expenditure  of  energy 
that  has  been  applied  against  alcoholism,  but  in  the  wrong 
place. 


164  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

mony  with  her  husband,  and  bearing  him  daughters, 
began  to  suffer  from  delusions  of  jealousy  not  long 
after  giving  birth  to  a  son ;  alcohol  played  no  part 
in  her  case.8 

She  began  to  find  everything  in  her  husband  sus- 
picious. A  cook  and  one  chambermaid  after  another 
were  dismissed,  and  finally  she  got  her  way  and  had 
only  male  servants  in  the  house.  Even  that  didn't 
help.  The  man,  who  was  everywhere  regarded  as  a 
model  husband,  and  who  assured  me  on  his  word  of 
honour  that  he  had  never  been  unfaithful  to  her, 
could  not  go  a  step  or  write  a  line  without  being 
watched,  suspected,  and  even  abused  by  his  wife. 
Curiously  enough  she  was  suspicious  of  her  husband 
only  with  either  very  young  females,  about  twelve 
or  thirteen  years  old,  or  quite  old,  ugly  ones,  while 
she  was  not  jealous  of  society  women,  friends,  or 
good-class  governesses,  even  when  they  were  attrac- 
tive or  pretty. 

Her  conduct  at  home  became  more  and  more  odd, 
and  her  threats  more  dangerous,  so  that  she  had  to 
be  taken  to  a  sanatorium.  (Before  doing  this  I  got 
the  patient  to  consult  Professor  Freud,  who  agreed 
with  my  diagnosis  and  approved  of  psycho-analysis 
being  tried). 

The  patient  was  so  remarkably  distrustful  and 
perspicacious  that  it  was  not  easy  to  establish  a  rap- 

*  I    have    briefly    narrated    the    case    in    another    connection : 
see  Chapter  II. 


Homosexuality  m  Pathogenesis  of  Parcmoia       165 

port  with  her.  I  had  to  take  the  ground  that  I  was 
not  quite  convinced  of  her  husband's  innocence,  and 
in  this  way  induced  the  otherwise  inaccessible  pa- 
tient to  part  with  the  delusional  ideas  that  she  had 
till  then  kept  to  herself. 

Among  these  were  pronounced  delusions  of  gran- 
deur and  of  connection.  Between  the  lines  of  the 
local  newspaper  were  innumerable  insinuations  of 
her  supposed  moral  depravity,  and  of  her  ridiculous 
position  as  a  betrayed  wife;  the  articles  were  writ- 
ten by  journalists  at  the  orders  of  her  enemies.  Per- 
sonalities of  the  highest  standing  (e.  g,  of  the  epis- 
copal court)  knew  of  these  goings  on,  and  the  fact 
that  the  royal  manoeuvres  took  place  every  year  just 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  her  home  was  not  uncon- 
nected with  certain  secret  intentions  of  her  enemies. 
The  enemies  turned  out  in  the  course  of  further  con- 
versation to  be  the  dismissed  servants. 

I  then  gradually  learnt  from  her  that  it  was 
against  her  will,  and  only  at  her  parents'  wish,  es- 
pecially her  father's,  that  she  had  looked  favourably 
on  her  husband's  courtship.  He  seemed  to  her  at 
the  time  too  common,  too  coarse.  After  the  mar- 
riage, however,  she  said  she  got  used  to  him.  A  cu- 
rious scene  took  place  in  the  house  after  the  birth 
of  the  first  daughter.  The  husband  was  supposed 
to  have  been  dissatisfied  that  she  had  not  borne  a 
son,  and  she  felt  quite  conscience-pricked  about  it 
also;  on  this  she  began  to  doubt  whether  she  had 


166          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

done  right  to  marry  this  man.  At  this  time  she 
began  to  be  jealous  of  an  extra  servant-girl,  aged 
thirteen  and  said  to  be  very  pretty.  She  was  still 
in  bed  after  the  confinement  when  she  summoned  the 
little  girl  and  made  her  kneel  down  and  swear  by  her 
father's  life  that  the  master  had  done  nothing  to 
her.  This  oath  calmed  her  at  the  time,  and  she 
thought  she  might  have  made  a  mistake. 

After  a  son  was  at  last  born,  she  felt  she  had  ful- 
filled her  duty  to  her  husband  and  was  now  free. 
She  began  to  behave  discordantly.  She  became  jeal- 
ous of  her  husband  again,  and  on  the  other  hand 
would  behave  towards  men  in  a  remarkable  manner. 
"Only  with  the  eyes,  however,"  she  said,  and  if  any- 
one took  the  hints  she  gave,  she  always  vigorously 
rebuffed  him. 

This  "harmless  playfulness,"  on  which  her  ene- 
mies similarly  put  a  false  construction,  soon  dis- 
appeared from  view,  however,  behind  the  jealousy 
scenes,  which  went  from  bad  to  worse. 

In  order  to  make  her  husband  impotent  as  re- 
gards other  women,  she  got  him  to  perform  coitus 
several  times  every  night.  Even  so,  when  she  left 
the  bedroom  for  a  moment  (to  attend  to  bodily 
needs)  she  locked  the  room  behind  her.  She  hurried 
back  at  once,  but  if  she  found  any  disarrangement 
of  the  bed-clothes  she  became  suspicious  that  the 
discharged  cook,  who  might  have  got  a  key  made, 
had  been  with  him  in  the  interval. 


Homosexuality  in  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia       167 

The  patient,  as  we  see,  realised  the  sexual  insa- 
tiability that  the  alcoholic  paranoiac  mentioned 
above  had  only  invented  and  could  not  carry  out. 
(A  woman  can,  to  be  sure,  increase  sexual  rela- 
tions at  will,  even  without  real  pleasure,  much  more 
easily  than  a  man.)  The  sharp  watching  of  the 
state  of  the  bed-clothes  was  also  repeated  here. 

The  patient's  behaviour  in  the  sanatorium  was 
full  of  contradictions.  She  coquetted  with  all  the 
men,  but  would  not  let  any  of  them  approach  her. 
On  the  other  hand  she  made  close  friendships  and  en- 
mities with  all  the  female  inhabitants  of  the  house, 
and  her  conversations  with  me  turned  for  the  most 
part  on  these.  She  willingly  took  the  luke-warm 
baths  prescribed  for  her,  but  used  the  opportunity 
given  by  the  bathing  to  collect  detailed  observations 
on  the  shapes  and  figures  of  the  other  female  pa- 
tients. She  described  to  me  with  every  sign  of  dis- 
gust and  abhorrence  the  wrinkled  abdomen  of  an 
elderly  patient  who  was  very  ill.  As  she  narrated 
her  observations  on  prettier  patients,  however,  the 
lascivious  expression  of  her  face  was  unmistakable. 
One  day  when  she  was  alone  with  these  younger  ones 
she  got  up  a  "calf  exhibition;"  she  stated  that  she 
won  the  first  prize  in  the  competition  (narcissism). 

I  tried,  with  great  circumspection,  to  learn  some- 
thing about  the  homosexual  component  of  her  sexual 
development  by  asking  her  whether,  like  so  many 
young  girls,  she  had  been  passionately  fond  of  her 


168  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

girl  friends.  She  divined  my  intention  immediately, 
however,  snubbed  me  severely,  and  maintained  that 
I  wanted  to  talk  her  into  all  sorts  of  abominations. 
I  managed  to  calm  her,  whereupon  she  confessed  to 
me  under  a  pledge  of  secrecy  that  when  she  was  a 
child  she  performed  mutual  masturbation  for  years 
with  a  little  girl,  whom  she  had  seduced.  (The  pa- 
tient had  only  sisters,  no  brothers.)  More  than  this, 
indications  of  over-strong  sexual  fixations  to  the 
mother  and  nurses  could  be  inferred  from  the  pa- 
tient's communications,  which  were  becoming  more 
and  more  scanty. 

The  comparative  peacefulness  of  the  patient  was 
for  the  first  time  seriously  disturbed  by  her  hus- 
band's visit,  and  the  delusions  of  jealousy  flared  up 
anew.  She  accused  her  husband  of  having  used  her 
absence  to  do  all  sorts  of  disgraceful  things,  and  her 
suspicion  was  particularly  directed  against  the  aged 
house-porteress,  who,  as  she  had  heard,  had  helped 
in  the  house-cleaning.  In  sexual  relations  she  be- 
came more  insatiable  than  ever.  If  her  husband  re- 
fused this,  she  threatened  to  kill  him,  and  on  one 
occasion  actually  threw  a  knife  at  him. 

The  slight  traces  of  transference  to  the  physi- 
cian, which  were  present  at  the  beginning,  also  gave 
way  in  these  stormy  times  to  a  more  and  more  ve- 
hement resistance,  so  that  the  prospects  of  the  analy- 
sis sank  to  nothing.  We  found  ourselves  compelled, 
therefore,  to  provide  for  her  in  a  more  distant  in- 


Homo  sexuality  in  Patho  gene  sis   of  Paranoia       169 

stitution  where  she  could  be  more  strictly  watched. 
This  case  also  of  delusional  jealousy  only  becomes 
clear  when  we  assume  that  it  was  a  question  of  the 
projection  on  to  the  husband  of  her  pleasure  in  her 
own  sex.  A  girl  who  had  grown  up  in  almost  ex- 
clusively feminine  surroundings,  who  as  a  child  was 
too  strongly  attached  to  the  female  nurses  and  ser- 
vants and  in  addition  to  this  had  for  years  enjoyed 
sexual  relations  with  a  girl  comrade  of  her  own 
age,  is  suddenly  forced  into  a  marriage  de  conve- 
nance  with  a  "coarse  man."  She  reconciles  herself 
to  it,  however,  ana  only  once  shews  indignation 
against  an  especially  crude  piece  of  unkindness  on 
her  husband's  part,  by  letting  her  desires  turn  to- 
wards her  childhood  ideal  (a  little  servant  girl). 
The  attempt  fails,  she  cannot  endure  the  homosex- 
uality any  longer,  and  has  to  project  it  onto  her 
husband.  That  was  the  first,  temporary  attack  of 
jealousy.  Penally,  when  she  had  done  her  "duty" 
and  borne  her  husband  the  son  he  demanded,  she  felt 
herself  free.  The  homosexuality  that  had  been  kept 
in  bounds  until  then  takes  stormy  possession  in  a 
crude  erotic  way  of  all  the  objects  that  offer  no  pos- 
sibility for  sublimation  (quite  young  girls,  old 
women  and  servants),  though  all  this  erotism,  with 
the  exception  of  the  cases  where  she  can  hide  it  un- 
der the  mask  of  harmless  play,  is  imputed  to  the  hus- 
band. In  order  to  support  herself  in  this  lie,  the 
patient  is  compelled  to  shew  increased  coquetry  to- 


170  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

wards  the  male  sex,  to  whom  she  had  become  pretty 
indifferent,  and  indeed  to  demean  herself  like  a 
nymphomaniac. 


Ill 


One  day  I  was  asked  by  a  lawyer  to  examine  and 
declare  sane  one  of  his  clients,  the  recorder  of  the 
town  X,  who  was  being  unjustly  persecuted  by  his 
compatriots.  Soon  after  the  man  in  question  an- 
nounced himself.  It  made  me  suspicious  to  begin 
with  that  he  handed  me  a  mass  of  newspaper  cut- 
tings, documents  and  pamphlets,  numbered  and 
sorted  in  the  most  exemplary  order,  all  of  which 
he  had  written  himself.  A  glance  at  the  papers  con- 
vinced me  that  he  was  a  paranoiac  with  delusions 
of  persecution.  I  made  an  appointment  to  examine 
him  on  the  next  day,  but  the  perusing  of  his  papers 
alone  shewed  me  the  homosexual  root  of  his  par- 
anoia. 

His  disputes  had  begun  with  his  writing  to  a  cap- 
tain that  his  vis-a-vis,  an  officer  of  the  .  .  .  regi- 
ment, "shaved  himself  at  the  window,  partly  in  his 
shirt,  with  a  bare  chest."  "In  the  second  place  he 
lets  his  gloves  dry  at  the  window  on  a  line,  as  I  have 
seen  done  in  small  Italian  villages."  The  patient 
asked  the  captain  "to  effect  a  redress  of  this  nui- 
sance." He  replied  to  the  captain's  disclaimer  by 
attacking  him.  Then  followed  a  notification  to  the 


Homosexuality  in  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia       171 

colonel,  in  which  he  begins  to  speak  of  the  "drawers" 
of  the  man  opposite ;  he  complains  again  also  of  the 
gloves.  In  printing  of  an  enormous  size  he  empha- 
sises the  fact  that  the  matter  would  be  indifferent  to 
him  if  it  were  not  that  he  wanted  to  let  his  sister 
occupy  the  rooms  giving  on  to  the  street.  "I  be- 
lieved I  was  fulfilling  a  chivalrous  duty  to  the  lady." 
At  the  same  time  an  extreme  sensitiveness  and  every 
sign  of  megalomania  is  noticeable  in  the  papers.  In 
the  later  ones  the  drawers  get  mentioned  oftener  and 
oftener.  The  expression  "protection  of  ladies,"  un- 
derlined, frequently  appears. 

In  a  subsequent  application  he  adds  that  he  had 
forgotten  to  mention  that  the  lieutenant  was  accus- 
tomed to  dress  himself  in  the  evening  at  the  bright- 
ly-lit window  without  pulling  down  the  blinds. 
"That  would  make  no  difference  to  me"  (this  in 
small  letters)  :  "In  the  name  of  a  lady,  however,  I 
must  beg  for  protection  against  such  a  sight." 

Then  came  memorials  to  the  commander-in-chief, 
to  the  ministry  of  war,  to  the  cabinet,  etc.,  and  in  all 
of  them  the  words  in  small  print,  "shirt,  drawers, 
naked  chest,"  etc., — and  only  these — had  been  sub- 
sequently underlined  in  red.  (The  patient  was  the 
owner  of  a  newspaper,  and  could  get  everything 
printed  according  to  his  heart's  desire.) 

From  a  document  of  the  commander-in-chief  it 
appeared  that  the  patient's  father  and  brother  had 
been  insane  and  had  ended  in  suicide.  The  father 


Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

was,  as  the  patient  expressed  it,  a  "country  lawyer 
and  orator"  (the  patient  was  also  a  lawyer),  the 
brother  was  a  lieutenant.  It  was  further  to  be  gath- 
ered that  the  patient  was  a  follower  of  Kneipp ; 9 
indeed  he  appeared  once  at  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Justice  with  bare  feet  in  sandals,  for  which  he  was 
reprimanded  ( exhibitionism) . 

Then  he  transferred  the  affair  on  to  the  code  of 
honour  basis,10  but  always  slipped  out  in  the  critical 
moment,  appealing  to  some  paragraph  or  other  in 
the  duelling  code,  of  which  he  was  complete  master. 
Here  the  half-deliberate  exaggeration  crept  in  that 
he  spoke  as  if  his  letter  had  been  an  insult  to  the 
officer  by  a  deed.  In  other  places  he  said  (in  huge 
print)  that  he  had  cited  facts  to  the  officer  in  the 
most  considerate  way  possible.  He  ascribes  to  the 
military  authorities  the  opinion  of  himself  that  he 
was  "an  old  woman,  who  has  nothing  else  to  do  but 
discover  objects  of  her  curiosity."  He  quoted  in- 
numerable examples  of  how  officers  abroad  were 
punished  for  insulting  a  girl  in  the  street.  He  de- 
manded protection  for  defenceless  women  in  general 
against  brutal  assaults,  etc.  In  one  of  his  applica- 
tions he  complained  that  the  above-mentioned  cap- 

*  (Kneipp  was  the  founder  of  a  pseudo-religious  sect,  one 
of  whose  tenets  was  that  the  members  should  wear  the  same 
foot-gear  as  that  worn  in  the  time  of  Christ.  Transl.) 

10  (This  refers  to  the  custom  still  prevailing  in  Hungary,  and 
elsewhere,  of  regarding  certain  matters  as  affairs  of  honour  in- 
volving the  necessity  of  a  duel  if  suitable  satisfaction  be  not 
provided.  Transl.) 


Homosexuality  in  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia       178 

tain  had  "angrily  and  ostentatiously  turned  his  face 
away  from  him." 

The  number  of  law-suits  in  which  he  was  involved 
increased  like  an  avalanche.  What  annoyed  him 
most  was  that  the  military  authorities  ignored  his 
memorials.  Civilians  he  dragged  before  the  civil 
courts ;  soon  he  transferred  the  matter  to  the  politi- 
cal sphere,  egged  on  in  his  newspaper  the  military 
and  municipal  authorities  against  each  other,  and 
exploited  the  "Pan-Germans"  against  the  Hungarian 
civil  authorities.  In  a  short  time  about  a  hundred 
"comrades"  came  forward,  who  applauded  him  both 
publicly  and  by  letter. 

Then  followed  a  curious  episode.  One  day  he 
complained  to  the  new  colonel  that  another  officer 
had  called  "For  shame,  you  miserable  Saxon !"  after 
his  sister  in  the  street.  The  sister  was  supposed  to 
confirm  this  in  a  letter,  which  was  certainly  written 
by  the  patient  himself. 

He  then  turned  to  newspaper  articles,  in  which  he 
set  difficult  riddles  with  "dangerous'*  places  indi- 
cated with  dots.  He  mentioned,  for  instance,  a 
French  proverb  that  in  German  ran  "das  L.  .  .  T. 

.  ".  I  had  considerable  trouble  to  discover  that 
this  signified  "Lacherliche  totet."  n 

A    NEW   COMPLAINT   AGAINST   THE   CAPTAIN    (Nr   I) 

mentioned  "grimaces,  gestures,  movements,  challeng- 
ing glances.'*  He  wouldn't  have  bothered  about  it, 

11  "Ridicule  kills." 


174  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

but  it  concerned  a  lady.  The  officer  was  like  a  boy. 
He  and  his  sister  would  make  the  matter  plain  to  him 
regardless  of  everything.  This  was  followed  by  new 
attacks  on  honour  with  retreat  of  the  patient,  who 
with  legal  niceties  appealed  to  the  duelling  code. 

Then  follow  threatening  letters  in  which  he,  in  his 
sister's  name,  talks  a  lot  about  "self-help;"  long 
explanations ;  a  hundred  quotations  about  duelling, 
etc. :  for  instance,  "Not  bullets  or  swords  is  it  that 
kill,  but  the  seconds."  The  words  "man,"  "men," 
"manly,"  recur  again  and  again.  He  writes  hymns 
of  praise  to  himself,  and  gets  fellow-citizens  to  sign 
them.  In  one  place  he  ironically  states  that  perhaps 
one  would  like  him,  in  the  service  of  love,  "to  kiss 
the  hands  and  feet  of  those  gentlemen." 

Now  comes  the  fight  with  the  municipal  authori- 
ties, to  whom  the  military  had  applied.  Forty-two 
municipal  councilmen  demanded  that  he  be  punished. 
He  picked  out  one  of  these,  named  Dahinten,  and 
bitterly  persecuted  him  in  public.  Encouraged  by 
the  cries  of  approval  and  the  backing  up  of  a  Vienna 
yellow  journal,  he  canvassed  for  the  position  of  vice- 
Lord  Lieutenant  of  a  county — and  blamed  everyone 
at  the  injustice  of  his  not  getting  this. 

Then  he  wanted  to  restore  the  good  relations  be- 
tween the  civil  and  military  authorities,  always  un- 
derlining these  words. 

Finally  the  matter  reached  a  superior  civil  au- 
thority, who  got  the  patient's  mental  state  examined 


Homosexuality  in  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia      175 

into.     He  came  to  me  in  the  hope  I  would  declare 
him  to  be  sane. 

Previous  experiences  with  paranoiacs  made  it  easy 
for  me  to  infer  from  these  facts  alone  the  extraordi- 
narily important  part  played  by  homosexuality  in 
this  case.  The  appearance  of  the  delusion  of  perse- 
cution, perhaps  long  hidden,  was  evoked  by  the  sight 
of  a  half-naked  officer,  whose  shirt,  drawers,  and 
gloves  also  seem  to  have  made  a  great  impression 
on  the  patient.  (Let  me  recall  the  part  played  by 
the  bed-clothes  in  the  two  cases  mentioned  above.) 
No  female  person  was  ever  accused  or  complained  of, 
he  constantly  fought  and  wrangled  only  with  men, 
for  the  most  part  officers  or  high  dignitaries,  supe- 
riors. I  interpret  this  as  projection  of  his  own 
homosexual  delight  in  those  persons,  the  affect  being 
preceded  by  a  negative  sign.  His  desires,  which 
have  been  cast  out  from  the  ego,  return  to  his  con- 
sciousness as  the  perception  of  the  persecutory 
tendency  on  the  part  of  the  objects  that  uncon- 
sciously please  him.  He  seeks  until  he  has  convinced 
himself  that  he  is  hated.  He  can  now  indulge  his 
own  homosexuality  in  the  form  of  hate,  and  at  the 
same  time  hide  from  himself.  The  preference  for 
being  persecuted  by  officers  and  officials  was  prob- 
ably conditioned  by  the  fact  of  his  father  having  been 
an  official  and  his  brother  an  officer;  I  surmise  that 
these  were  the  original,  infantile  objects  of  his  homo- 
sexual phantasies, 


176  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

The  false,  magnified  potency  of  the  alcoholic  delu- 
sional patient  and  the  hypocritical  nymphomania  of 
the  jealous  paranoiac  correspond  with  the  exagger- 
ated chivalry  here  and  with  the  delicate  feeling  that 
he  demands  from  men  towards  women.  I  have  found 
this  with  most  manifest  homosexual  men.  This  high 
esteem  is  one  reason  why  homosexuals,  like  many 
psychically  impotent  men,  are  unable  to  take  a 
woman  as  an  object  of  love.  Homosexuals  esteem 
women,  but  love  men.  Thus  also  our  paranoiac,  only 
that  his  love  has  been  transformed  through  reversal 
of  affect  into  persecutory  delusion  and  hate. 

The  fact  that  he  put  his  sister  in  the  foreground 
as  the  insulted  person  was  probably  also  in  part  con- 
ditioned by  passive-homosexual  phantasies  in  which 
he  identifies  himself  with  this  sister.  His  complaint 
that  he  was  regarded  as  an  old  woman,  who  was  seek- 
ing for  the  objects  of  her  curiosity  in  nude  officers 
and  their  underlinen,  speaks  in  favour  of  this  view. 
When,  therefore,  he  continually  complains  of  insults 
on  the  part  of  the  men  who  persecute  him,  he  means 
unconsciously  sexual  assaults  of  which  he  would  like 
to  be  the  object  himself. 

It  is  neat  to  see  in  this  case  how  the  laboriously 
built  up  social  sublimations  of  homosexuality  col- 
lapse, probably  under  the  pressure  from  the  over- 
growth of  infantile  phantasies,  perhaps  also  as  a 
result  of  other  exciting  causes  which  are  unknown  to 
me,  and  how  the  childish-perverse  basis  of  these  spir- 


Homosexuality  m  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia      177 

itualisations  (e.  g.  peeping  mania,  exhibitionism) 
breaks  through  in  the  delusions. 

As  a  control  to  my  conception  of  this  case  I  noted 
the  patient's  reactions  to  a  hundred  stimulus-words 
of  Jung's  scheme,  and  analysed  the  associations. 
The  instructive  part  of  this  analysis  is  that  it  yielded 
meagre  results.  The  paranoiac  so  thoroughly 
gets  rid  of  the  affects  disturbing  him  that  he  believes 
they  do  not  concern  him,  and  that  is  why  he  relates 
in  his  actions  and  speech  everything  that  the  hys- 
teric from  fear  of  his  conscience  represses  deeply. 
It  is  further  striking,  and  evidently  characteristic  of 
true  paranoia,  that  of  Jung's  "complex-signs"  dis- 
turbed reproduction  is  hardly  met  with.  The  pa- 
tient recalls  excellently  even  the  reactions  to  the 
"critical"  stimulus-words  that  touch  the  complexes. 
Projection  guards  the  paranoiac  so  well  from  affects 
that  he  has  no  need  of  the  hysterical  amnesia.  Near- 
ness of  a  complex  seems  to  betray  itself  here  rather 
through  talkativeness  and  personal  relation.  The 
reactions  are  in  any  case  throughout  egocentric. 
Sound  and  rime  reactions  are  very  frequent,  as  are 
witty  ones.  So  much  for  the  form.  I  shall  narrate 
here  for  the  sake  of  example,  some  individual  reac- 
tions, together  with  the  analysis  relating  to  them. 

S.  W.12  Cooking.  R.  cook.  A.  Cooking  makes 
women  quarrelsome.  A  woman  gets  inflamed,  heated, 
at  the  fire.  My  mother  was  also  heated.  I  wouldn't 

11  S.    W.=Stimulus-word.       R.=Reaction.      A.=Analysis, 


178           Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

let  her  cook  to-day.  A  man  can  stand  much  more. 
Goethe  says,  to  be  sure :  "Seven  men  would  not  stand 
what  one  woman  can."  My  mother  had  six  children. 
A  man  "would  be  more  suitable  for  bearing  children. 
(In  this  reaction  we  find  the  forbearance  towards 
women  and  the  over-estimation  of  men,  with  a  phan- 
tasy: for  a  man  to  bear  children.) 

S.  W.  River.  R.  I  should  like  to  bathe  in  a 
river.  A.  I  am  passionately  fond  of  bathing;  I 
bathed  in  the  river  with  my  cousin  every  day  until 
October.  He  shot  himself,  on  account  of  over-strain. 
I  avoid  over-strain,  and  that's  why  I  don't  have 
much  to  do  with  women.  (Attempt  to  explain  on 
hygienic  grounds  his  sexual  avoidance  of  women. 
The  cousin  was  an  officer.) 

S.  W.  Salt.  R.  Reminds  me  of  the  salt  of  mar- 
riage. A.  I  am  an  enemy  of  married  life.  In  it 
there  is  daily  "friction."  (He  perhaps  means  also 
the  compulsion  to  coitus  in  marriage.) 

S.  W.  Writing.  R.  I  like  the  writing  of  the 
Berlin  artist  who  has  died,  the  founder  of  the  Kun- 
stgewerbe  .  .  .  Eckmann  was  his  name.  A.  Strik- 
ing, enormously  large  handwriting  like  his  pleases 
me.  Like  that  of  my  father's.  Mine  resembles  my 
father's,  but  it  is  not  so  pretty.  My  letters,  how- 
ever, are  also  large  ones.  (Esteem  for  his  father 
and  his  physical  superiority  expresses  itself,  as  so 
often,  in  the  tendency  to  copy  his  handwriting. 


Homosexuality  m  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia     179 

Pleasure  in  the  size  of  the  letters  may  also  be  taken 
symbolically.) 

S.  W.  Cork.  R.  "Brings  out  the  popping  effect 
of  champagne."  A.  Nature  hasn't  given  women 
any  of  this.  Hence  their  fading.  My  father,  how- 
ever, was  handsome  even  as  an  old  man. 

S.  W.  Hitting.  R.  That  is  what  my  opponents 
deserve,  to  put  it  mildly.  A.  What  I  should  best 
like  would  be  to  turn  a  hose  on  them  till  they  were 
soaking.  That  would  be  fine.  Fire-brigades  inter- 
ested me  even  in  childhood.  (Fire-hose  is  one  of  the 
universal  symbols  for  the  male  organ.) 

S.  W.  Pure.  R.  To  the  pure  all  things  are  pure. 
A.  I  was  always  a  cleanly  child,  and  was  praised 
for  this  by  my  uncle.  My  elder  brother  was  dirty. 
(  Exaggerated  or  precocious  intolerance  for  dirt  and 
disorder  on  a  child's  part  is  a  symptom  of  homosex- 
ual fixation — Sadger). 

IV 

The  fourth  case  I  wish  briefly  to  relate  was  not 
one  of  pure  paranoia,  but  one  of  dementia  praecox 
with  marked  paranoiac  aspects. 

It  concerned  a  country  teacher,  still  young,  who 
— so  his  rather  elderly-looking  wife  told  me — had 
been  tormented  for  about  a  year  with  thoughts  of 
suicide,  believed  himself  to  be  persecuted  and  accused 
by  everyone,  and  brooded  alone  for  hours  at  a  time. 


180          Contribution*  to  Psycho-Analysis 

I  found  the  patient,  who  was  in  bed,  awake,  but 
with  his  head  hidden  away  under  the  clothes.  I  had 
hardly  exchanged  a  few  words  with  him  when  he 
asked  me  if  as  a  doctor  I  had  to  keep  my  patient's 
secrets.  After  I  affirmed  this  he  told  me,  amidst 
signs  of  intense  dread,  that  he  had  three  times  per- 
formed cunnilingus  with  his  wife.  He  knew  that 
humanity  had  condemned  him  to  death  for  this  crime, 
that  his  hands  and  feet  would  be  chopped  off,  his 
nose  would  decompose,  and  his  eyes  be  plucked  out. 
He  shewed  me  a  defective  place  in  the  ceiling,  which, 
however,  had  been  walled  up,  through  which  they 
must  have  watched  his  crime.  His  greatest  enemy, 
the  school-director,  was  informed  of  everything  by 
means  of  complicated  mirrors  and  electro-magnetic 
apparatus.  Through  his  perverse  deed  he  had  be- 
come a  woman,  for  a  man  performed  coitus  with  his 
penis,  not  with  his  mouth.  They  would  cut  off  his 
penis  and  testicles,  or  else  his  whole  "Kiirbiskopf" 
(literally  block-head,  but  kiirbis  is  also  a  vulgar 
Hungarian  expression  for  testicles). 

I  happened  to  touch  my  nose,  and  he  said  "Yes, 
my  nose  is  decomposing,  you  want  to  say."  I  said 
on  entering  the  room  "Are  you  Herr  Kugler?" 
Coming  back  to  this  he  explained :  "The  whole  story 
is  told  in  my  name;  I  am  Die  Kugel-er  (=  Kugl- 
er), ».  e.  a  die-ert  a  mau-woman.13  The  d'or  of  the 

"  (Die  and  er  are  German  for  she  and  he  respectively. 
TransL) 


Homosexuality  in  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia      181 

Christian  name  Sandor  signified  to  him  gold  (French 
or— gold),  ».  £.,  he  was  made  sexless.14  On  one  occa- 
sion he  wanted  to  jump  out  of  the  window,  but  the 
word  "Hunyad"  occurred  to  him  ("huny"  is  Hun- 
garian for  to  shut,  "ad"  for  to  give)  *.  e.  he  is  clos- 
ing his  eyes  (he  dies),  so  that  his  wife  may  give  her- 
self to  another  (sexually).  So  that  no  one  should 
think  this  of  him  he  stayed  alive.  They  might  even 
think  when  he  was  alive  that  he  wanted  to  shut  an 
eye  if  his  wife  "gave"  herself  to  another. 

He  was  filled  with  a  terrible  sense  of  guilt  cm  ac- 
count of  his  perverse  act.  Such  perversity  had  al- 
ways been  foreign  to  him,  and  now  also  he  abhors  it. 
His  enemy  must  have  caused  it,  perhaps  through  sug- 
gestion. 

On  closely  questioning  him  I  learnt  that  he  had 
sacrificed  himself  for  his  director  ("A  handsome,  im- 
posing man")  ;  the  latter  was  also  very  pleased  with 
him  and  often  said,  "I  could  do  nothing  without  you ; 
you  are  my  right  hand."  (This  reminds  one  of  the 
"better  half.")  For  the  past  five  years  the  direc- 
tor had  tormented  him,  disturbing  him  with  docu- 
ments when  he  was  most  deeply  engrossed  at  his 
work  in  explaining  a  poem  to  the  class,  etc. 

At  the  question  "Can  you  speak  German"  (tud 
nemetiil  in  Hungarian)  he  dissected  and  translated 
the  word  nemetiil  (=German)  into  the  syllables: 

14  (Gold  in  German  happens  to  be  of  the  neuter  gender. 
Transl.) 


182          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

nem  =  nimm  (German  for  take) 
et  =  und  (German  for  and) 
ill  =  sitz  (German  for  seat)  (ill  is  Hungarian 
for  to  sit), 

».  e.  I  meant  by  my  question  that  he  should  take  his 
penis  in  his  hand,  and,  as  a  punishment  for  this,  sit 
(be  imprisoned  in  a  hole).  By  this  he  expressly 
meant  his  own  penis,  which  according  to  his  enemies' 
accusation  he  wanted  to  insert  into  another  hole, 
i.  e.  other  strange  women. 

He  swore  that  he  adored  his  wife.  His  father  had 
been  a  poor  man-servant  (this  was  true)  and  very 
stern  with  him.  In  student  days  he  constantly  sat  at 
home  and  read  poetry  aloud  to  his  mother.  His 
mother  had  always  been  very  kind  to  him. 

We  have  here  to  do  with  a  man  who  had  happily 
sublimated  his  homosexuality  for  a  long  time,  but 
who  since  the  disappointment  with  the  previously 
adored  director  hated  all  men,  and  in  order  to  find 
reason  for  this  hate  had  to  explicate  every  expres- 
sion, every  gesture,  every  word,  in  terms  of  the  wish 
to  be  persecuted.  He  soon  got  to  hate  me  also: 
every  one  of  my  words  and  gestures  he  explained  in  a 
hostile  way,  and  dissected,  translated,  and  distorted 
every  word  until  it  was  turned  into  a  hostile  insinua- 
tion. 

The  patient's  mother  told  me  her  son  had  always 
been  a  good  child.  Instead  of  playing  with  other 
children,  he  read  aloud  books,  especially  poetry,  to 


Homosexuality  m  Pathogenesis  of  Paranoia      183 

his  mother,  and  explained  to  her  their  contents.  The 
father  was  a  simple  workman,  and  was  sometimes 
rather  harsh  with  the  boy,  whom  he  often  annoyed 
by  disturbing  the  reading.15 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  patient  thought  very 
little  of  his  father,  to  whom  he  was  intellectually 
superior,  and  longed  for  a  more  imposing  one.  This 
he  found  later  in  the  person  of  the  school-director, 
his  superior,  whom  he  served  for  years  with  tireless 
zeal,  but  who  did  not  satisfy  the  patient's  expecta- 
tions (doubtless  too  high).  He  wanted  now  to  give 
his  love  back  to  his  wife,  but  in  the  meantime,  how- 
.ever,  she  had  become  for  him  a  "neutral  quantity." 
The  heterosexual  exaggeration  and  the  cunnilingus 
might  have  veiled  his  eyes  to  the  lack  of  desire  for  his 
wife,  but  the  longing  for  the  male  sex  did  not  cease ; 
it  was  only  cast  out  from  the  ego-consciousness  and 
returned  to  this  as  a  projection  with  a  negative  pre- 
fix; he  became  a  persecuted  being. 

*  *  *  *  * 

In  addition  to  those  here  narrated  I  have  made  an 
"analytic  anamnesis"  with  three  other  paranoiacs.16 
In  each  of  these  projected  homosexual  desires  played 
the  most  important  part,  but  as  I  learnt  nothing 

"Hence  the  traumatic  effect  of  the  later  disturbing  of  his 
lecture  by  the  director. 

MOne  with  delusions  of  jealousy  and  two  querulants.  One 
of  the  latter,  an  engineer,  introduced  himself  to  me  with  the 
complaint,  "certain  men  in  some  unknown  way  sucked  the 
masculine  power  from  his  genitals." 


184          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

essentially  new  from  these  cases  I  did  not  make  any 
exact  notes  of  them. 

The  histories  here  published,  however,  justify  the 
surmise  that  with  paranoia  it  is  essentially  a  question 
of  the  re-occupation  of  homosexual  pleasurable  ob- 
jects with  unsublimated  "sexual  hunger,"  against 
which  the  ego  defends  itself  by  help  of  the  projection 
mechanism. 

The  establishment  of  this  process  would  naturally 
bring  us  face  to  face  with  a  larger  problem,  that  of 
the  "choice  of  neurosis"  (Freud)  ;  with  the  question, 
namely,  what  conditions  have  to  be  fulfilled  for  the 
normal  preponderance  of  heterosexuality,  a  homo- 
sexual neurosis,  or  paranoia  to  proceed  from  the  in- 
fantile bisexuality,  or  ambisexuality.17 

"  I  suggest  that  the  term  ambisexuality  be  used  in  psychology 
instead  of  the  expression  "bisexual  predisposition."  This  would 
connote  that  we  understand  by  this  predisposition,  not  the 
presence  of  male  and  female  material  in  the  organism  (Fliess), 
nor  of  male  and  female  sex  hunger  in  the  mind,  but  the  child's 
psychical  capacity  for  bestowing  his  erotism,  originally  object- 
less, on  either  the  male  or  the  female  sex,  or  on  both. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ON    ONANISM  l 

APART  of  the  neurotic  disturbances  caused  by 
onanism  is  certainly  of  a  purely  psychical 
nature  and  can  be  traced  to  the  apprehension  that, 
in  the  earliest  years  of  childhood  (at  the  time  of 
infantile  masturbation),  had  been  brought  into  an 
indissoluble  associative  connection  with  the  idea  of 
self -gratification  (fear  of  castration  with  boys,  fear 
of  having  the  hands  cut  off  with  girls).  A  great 
many  cases  of  hysteria  and  obsessional  neurosis 
prove  in  the  analysis  to  be  the  psychical  result  of 
this  infantile  apprehension,  which — on  the  awaking 
of  object-love — becomes  accompanied  with  appre- 
hension of  incestuous  onanistic  phantasies.  The 
adult  dread  of  masturbation  is  thus  composed  of 
infantile  (castration-)  dread  together  with  juvenile 
(incest-)  dread,  and  the  symptoms  resulting  from 
the  conversion  and  substitution  of  this  dread  may 
be  removed  by  means  of  analysis. 

I  have  no  doubt,  however,  that  onanism  is  also  able 

1  Contribution  to  the  Symposium  on  Onanism  held  by  the 
Vienna  Psycho-Analytical  Society.  Published  in  the  Diskus- 
sionen  der  Vereinigung,  Heft  II.  1912. 

185 


186          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

directly  to  evoke  certain  nervous  and  psychical  dis- 
turbances, although  it  cannot  be  pointed  out  too 
often  that  this  significance  of  onanisra  is  as  a  rule 
much  less  than  that  of  psychoneurotic  symptoms 
caused  by  rough  frightening  and  repression. 

In  a  series  of  cases  in  which  the  analysis  had  made 
conscious  the  dread  of  castration-  and  incest- 
thoughts,  and  had  thereby  removed  psychoneurotic 
symptoms,  in  which,  however,  abstinence  from  onan- 
ism  was  not  total  even  during  and  after  the  treat- 
ment, the  patients  shewed  on  the  day  following  mas- 
turbation a  typical  disturbance  in  their  psychical 
and  somatic  condition  which  I  will  term  One-Day- 
Neurasthenia.  The  chief  complaints  of  the  patients 
were:  marked  fatigability  and  leaden  weight  in  the 
legs,  especially  on  getting  up  in  the  morning;  in- 
somnia or  disturbed  sleep ;  over-sensitiveness  to  light 
and  sound  stimuli  (sometimes  definite  sensations  of 
pain  in  the  eye  and  ear) ;  gastric  disturbances ; 
paraesthesias  in  the  lumbar  region,  and  sensitive- 
ness to  pressure  along  the  nerves.  In  the  psychical 
sphere:  great  emotional  irritability;  ill-humour  and 
fault-finding;  incapacity  or  diminished  capacity  for 
concentration  (aprosexia).  These  disturbances 
lasted  the  whole  forenoon,  gradually  receded  in  the 
early  hours  of  the  afternoon,  and  only  towards  eve- 
ning was  there  complete  restoration  of  the  bodily 
state,  with  calm  in  the  sphere  of  the  emotions  and  re- 
covery of  full  intellectual  capacity. 


On  Onanism  187 

I  wish  expressly  to  remark  that  these  symptoms 
did  not  coincide  with  any  relapse  in,  or  worsening  of, 
the  psychoneurotic  symptoms,  and  that  I  did  not 
manage  in  a  single  case  to  reach  these  symptoms  psy- 
cho-analytically  or  to  influence  them  in  this  way. 
Honesty,  therefore,  demands  that  psychological 
speculations  should  be  disregarded  here,  and  that  the 
symptoms  described  be  recognised  as  physiological 
results  of  onanism. 

This  observation  supports,  so  I  think,  Freud's 
views  regarding  the  genesis  of  neurasthenia.  The 
masturbatory  actual-neurosis  may  be  conceived  as  a 
becoming  chronic,  a  summation,  of  the  symptoms  of 
the  onanistic  one-day  neurasthenias. 

Many  observations  tell  in  favour  of  the  conclu- 
sion that  masturbatory  activity  is  really  able  to 
bring  about  physiological  effects  that  do  not  per- 
tain to  the  normal  act  of  coitus,  and  theoretical  con- 
siderations are  not  in  disaccord  with  it. 

There  are  men  who  have  frequent  sexual  inter- 
course with  their  wives,  in  spite  of  a  diminution  in 
"sexual  hunger,"  but  who  replace  in  their  imagina- 
tion the  person  of  their  wife  by  another,  and,  there- 
fore, so  to  speak,  perform  onanism  per  vaginam. 
When  such  men  occasionally  have  sexual  relations 
with  someone  else  who  gives  them  complete  satisfac- 
tion, they  remark  a  very  great  difference  between 
their  state  after  the  coitus  that  was  helped  by  phan- 
tasy and  after  the  coitus  that  gave  satisfaction  in 


188          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

itself.  If  the  other  person  fulfilled  the  conditions  of 
their  sexual  hunger,  they  felt  invigorated  after  the 
act,  enjoyed  a  short  sleep,  and  on  both  the  same  and 
the  next  day  were  unusually  competent  and  efficient. 
After  the  onanistic  coitus,  however,  there  surely 
followed  a  one-day  neurasthenia,  with  all  the  symp- 
toms described  above.  Especially  typical  in  such 
cases  was  the  occurrence,  immediately  after  the  in- 
tercourse, of  pain  in  the  eyes  when  light  fell  on 
them,  weight  in  the  legs,  and — apart  from  the  psy- 
chical irritability — a  pronounced  hyperaesthesia  of 
the  skin,  especially  sensitiveness  to  tickling.  On  the 
ground  of  the  accompanying  feelings  of  heat  and 
pulsation  I  interpret  the  insomnia  as  the  result  of 
vasomotor  excitability. 

Theoretical  considerations  also  yield  no  sound  ob- 
jection to  the  supposition  that  normal  coitus  and 
masturbation  are  processes  that  are  to  be  estimated 
differently  not  only  psychologically,  but  also  physio- 
logically. Whether  the  onanism  is  performed  by 
rubbing  with  the  hand  or  through  friction  of  the 
member  against  the  vagina  of  a  non-satisfying  sex- 
ual object  two  processes  are  essentially  altered  in 
comparison  with  normal  intercourse.  With  onanism 
the  normal  fore-pleasure  is  absent,  whereas  the  share 
taken  by  the  phantasy  is  enormously  increased. 
Now  I  do  not  believe  that  fore-pleasure  is  a  purely 
psychological  process.  When  a  satisfying  sexual 
object  is  gazed  at,  touched,  kissed,  embraced,  the  op- 


On  0 nanism  189 

tic,  tactile,  oral,  and  muscular  erogenous  zones  are 
actively  excited,  and  they  automatically  pass  s>ver  a 
part  of  this  excitation  to  the  genital  zone ;  the  proc- 
ess takes  place  to  begin  with  in  the  sense  organs,  or 
sensorial  centres,  and  the  phantasy  is  only  second- 
arily drawn  into  sympathetic  enjoyment.  With 
onanism,  however,  all  the  sense  organs  are  silent,  and 
the  conscious  phantasy,  together  with  the  genital 
stimulation,  have  to  procure  the  whole  sum  of  exci- 
tation. The  forcible  retaining  of  a  picture,  often 
imagined  with  hallucinatory  sharpness,  during  a 
sexual  act  that  normally  is  almost  unconscious  is  no 
slight  task ;  it  is  certainly  great  enough  to  explain  a 
resulting  fatigability  of  the  attention. 

The  excitability  of  the  sense  organs  after  onanism 
(and  in  neurasthenia)  is  not  so  easily  explained.  Too 
little  is  known  for  this  purpose  of  the  nervous  proc- 
esses in  normal  coitus.  Through  the  stimulation  of 
the  erogenous  zones  in  coitus  a  state  of  preparedness 
of  the  genital  organ  is  aroused  in  the  first  place;  in 
the  friction  that  succeeds,  the  genito-spinal  reflex 
then  plays  the  chief  part ;  it  ends  in  a  summation  of 
genital  stimuli,  and  finally — synchronously  with 
ejaculation — in  an  explosive  radiation  of  the  excita- 
tion over  the  whole  body.  I  surmise  that  the  sensual 
pleasure,  which,  like  all  common  feelings,  cannot  be 
localised,  arises  through  the  genital  stimulation 
(when  it  has  accumulated  enough  or  reached  a  cer- 
tain tension)  explosively  radiating  beyond  the  spinal 


190          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

centre  into  the  whole  sphere  of  feeling,  thus  into  the 
cutaneous  and  sensorial  centres  as  well.  If  this  is 
the  case,  it  is  probably  not  a  matter  of  indifference 
whether  the  wave  of  lust  finds  a  sphere  of  feeling 
that  is  prepared  by  fore-pleasure,  or  one  that  is  un- 
excited  and,  so  to  speak,  cold.  It  is  therefore  very 
far  from  obvious  that  the  nervous  processes  in  coitus 
and  masturbation  should  be  physiologically  identical, 
and  indeed  the  considerations  just  mentioned  even 
give  a  hint  of  the  direction  in  which  one  would  have 
to  look  for  the  causes  of  the  vasomotor,  sensory,  sen- 
sorial, and  psychical  over-stimulation  that  remains 
after  onanism.  It  is  possible  that  the  wave  of  lust 
normally  dies  away  altogether,  but  that  with  mas- 
turbation a  part  of  the  excitation  cannot  reach  a 
proper  level;  this  amount  of  excitation  remaining 
over  would  explain  the  one-day  neurasthenia — per- 
haps neurasthenia  altogether.2 

The  discoveries  of  Fliess  concerning  the  relations 
between  nose  and  genitalia  should  also  not  be  forgot- 
ten. The  vasomotor  over-excitation  in  masturbation 
can  cause  chronic  disturbances  in  the  erectile  tissue 
of  the  nasal  mucous  membrane,  which  may  then  lead 
to  the  most  diverse  forms  of  neuralgia  and  func- 
tional disturbances.  In  some  of  my  cases  of  mas- 

*  "One-Day  Neurasthenia"  sometimes  happens  even  after  quite 
normal  coitus,  e.  g.  when  as  an  exception  the  intercourse  takes 
place  in  the  forenoon,  when  the  sexual  hunger  is  usually  less. 
The  sexual  hunger  increases  in  the  late  hours  of  the  afternoon, 
a  fact  that  certainly  is  not  without  bearing  on  the  evening  im- 
provement in  the  neurasthenic's  condition. 


On  Onanism  191 

turbatory  Neurasthenia  the  patient's  condition  per- 
ceptibly improved  after  cauterisation  of  the  genital 
points  in  the  nose.  Extensive  investigations  will 
have  to  be  undertaken  on  this  matter. 

Whereas  in  the  preceding  remarks  I  wanted  to 
warn  against  regarding  the  results  of  masturbation 
exclusively  from  the  psychological  point  of  view,  I 
fear  that  in  the  question  of  ejaculatio  praecox  it  is 
the  opposite  mistake  that  is  made.  To  judge  from 
my  experience,  precocious  emission  of  semen  often 
happens  with  people  to  whom  coitus  is  for  one  reason 
or  another  disagreeable,  who  thus  have  an  interest 
in  finishing  the  business  as  quickly  as  possible.  Now 
we  know  that  onanists — warped  by  their  phantasy 
— are  only  too  soon  dissatisfied  with  their  sexual 
object,  and  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  unconsciously 
they  would  like  to  shorten  the  act.  By  these  re- 
marks I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  local  causes 
(changes  around  the  ductus  ejaculatorii)  are  in  no 
case  to  be  held  responsible  for  the  ejaculatio  praecox. 

I  only  wish  to  add  a  remark  about  the  genesis 
of  the  tooth-pulling  symbolism  of  onanism  in  dreams 
and  neuroses.  We  all  know  that  tooth-pulling  in 
dreams  symbolises  onanism.  Freud  and  Rank  have 
shewn  this  with  irrefragable  examples  and  have  also 
drawn  attention  to  colloquial  German,  which  pro- 
fesses the  same  symbolism.  The  same  symbol,  how- 
ever, is  very  often  met  with  among  Hungarians  who 
certainly  did  not  know  of  those  German  expressions, 


192          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

and  yet  the  Hungarian  language  has  no  similar  syno- 
nym for  masturbation.  On  the  other  hand  the  sym- 
bolic identification  of  tooth-pulling  and  castration 
could  in  all  the  cases  be  made  probable  through 
analysis.  Dreams  use  tooth-pulling  as  a  symbol  for 
castration,  i.  e.  the  punishment  in  the  place  of  the 
onanism. 

In  the  formation  of  this  symbol  of  onanism — apart 
from  the  external  similarity  of  tooth  and  penis, 
tooth-pulling  and  cutting  off  a  penis — a  certain  tem- 
poral factor  may  not  be  without  significance.  Cas- 
tration and  tooth-pulling  (falling  out  of  the  teeth) 
are  the  first  operative  interventions  with  the  possi- 
bility of  which  the  child  is  seriously  threatened.  It 
is  then  not  hard  for  the  child  to  repress  the  more  dis- 
agreeable of  the  two  interventions  (castration)  out 
of  the  phantasy,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  empha- 
sise symbolically  the  tooth-pulling  that  resembles  it. 
This  is  probably  the  way  in  which  sexual  symbolism 
altogether  has  come  about. 

There  exists,  by  the  way,  even  a  tooth-neurosis  of 
its  own  (excessive  dread  of  anything  being  done  to 
the  teeth,  e.  g.  by  a  dentist;  continual  boring  and 
probing  into  the  cavities  of  hollow  teeth;  obsessions 
concerned  the  teeth,  etc.).  In  the  analysis  this  neu- 
rosis proves  to  be  a  derivative  of  onanism,  or  fear  of 
castration. 


CHAPTER  VII 

TRANSITORY    SYMPTOM-CONSTRUCTIONS     DURING    THE 
ANALYSIS  l 

(Transitory  Conversion,  Substitution,  Illusion,  Hal- 
lucination, "Character-Regression,"  and  "Expres- 
sion-Displacement"} 

IT  is  in  the  transference  that  the  physician,  as  well 
as  the  patient,  receives  the  really  convincing  im- 
pressions as  to  the  correctness  of  the  analytical  ex- 
planation of  symptoms.  So  long  as  the  psychical 
material  afforded  through  free  association  is  the 
only  proof  that  the  patient  has  of  the  correctness  of 
the  analytical  explanations,  they  may  seem  to  him 
remarkable,  surprising,  even  illuminating;  he  still 
does  not  attain  a  conviction  of  their  indubitable  cor- 
rectness, the  feeling  that  they  are  the  only  explana- 
tions possible,  however  honestly  he  may  try  to  be- 
come convinced,  or  even  if  he  forces  conviction  on 
himself  with  all  his  strength.  It  definitely  looks  as 
if  one  could  never  reach  any  real  convictions  at  all 

1  Published  in  the  Zentralblatt  fur  Psychoanalyse,  Jahrd.  II, 
1912. 

193 


194  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

through  logical  insight  alone ; 2  one  needs  to  have 
lived  through  an  affective  experience,  to  have — so  to 
speak — felt  it  on  one's  own  body,  in  order  to  gain 
that  degree  of  certain  insight  which  deserves  the 
name  of  "conviction."  The  physician  also  who  has 
only  learned  analysis  from  books,  without  having 
submitted  his  own  mind  to  a  thorough  analysis  and 
gathered  practical  experience  with  patients,  cannot 
convince  himself  of  the  truth  of  its  results;  at  the 
most  he  gains  a  more  or  less  high  degree  of  confi- 
dence, which  may  at  times  closely  approach  convic- 
tion, but  behind  which  there  always  still  lurks  a  sup- 
pressed doubt. 

I  wish  here  to  bring  forward  a  number  of  symp- 
toms that  I  have  seen  arise  with  my  patients  during 
the  treatment  and  pass  away  through  analysis,  which 
contributed  in  converting  into  certainty  my  impres- 
sion of  the  truth  of  the  Freudian  mechanisms,  and 
aroused  or  strengthened  the  patients'  confidence  in 
the  matter. 

Free  association  and  the  analytic  scrutinising  of 
the  incoming  thoughts  is  not  infrequently  inter- 
rupted in  hysterics  by  the  abrupt  appearance  of  so- 
matic phenomena  of  a  sensory  or  motor  nature.  One 
might  at  first  sight  be  inclined  to  regard  these  con- 
ditions as  disagreeable  disturbances  of  the  analytic 
work,  and  to  treat  them  accordingly.  If,  however, 

1  (The  author  is  evidently  speaking  of  psychological  truths, 
not  of  physical  ones.     Transl.) 


Symptom-Constructions  During  Analysis        195 

one  takes  really  seriously  the  principle  of  everything 
that  happens  being  strictly  determined,  one  has  to 
seek  an  explanation  for  these  phenomena  also.  If 
one  makes  up  one's  mind  to  do  so,  and  thus  submits 
these  symptoms  also  to  analysis,  it  becomes  plain 
that  they  really  are  representations,  in  symptom 
form,  of  unconscious  feeling  and  thought-excitations 
which  the  analysis  has  stirred  up  from  their  inactiv- 
ity (state  of  rest,  equilibrium)  and  brought  near 
to  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  but  which  before 
becoming  quite  conscious — in  the  last  moment,  so  to 
speak — have  been  forced  back  again  on  account  of 
their  painful  character  (to  consciousness),  whereby 
their  sum  of  excitation,  which  can  no  longer  be  quite 
suppressed,  becomes  transformed  into  the  production 
of  somatic  symptoms.  A  symptom  that  has  been 
brought  about  in  this  way  does  not  only  represent 
a  certain  sum  of  excitation,  but  it  proves  to  be 
determined  in  a  qualitative  manner  also.  For  if  at- 
tention be  directed  to  the  nature  of  the  symptom,  to 
the  kind  of  motor  or  sensory  state  of  stimulation  or 
of  paralysis,  to  the  organ  in  which  it  occurs,  to  the 
occurrences  and  thoughts  that  immediately  preceded 
the  formation  of  the  symptom,  and  an  effort  be  made 
to  discover  its  meaning,  this  somatic  symptom  is 
shewn  to  be  a  symbolic  expression  for  an  unconscious 
thought-  or  emotion-excitation  that  has  been  stimu- 
lated through  the  analysis.  If  one  now  translates 
the  symptom  for  the  patient  from  symbolic  to  con- 


196          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

ceptual  language,  it  may  happen,  even  when  he  had 
no  idea  of  this  mechanism  beforehand,  that  he  at 
once  declares  with  great  astonishment  that  the  sen- 
sory or  motor  state  of  stimulation  or  paralysis  has 
disappeared  as  suddenly  as  it  had  appeared.  Obser- 
vation of  the  patient  shews  unmistakably  that  the 
symptom  only  ceases  when  the  patient  has  recognised 
our  explanation  to  be  the  correct  one,  not  when  he 
has  merely  understood  it.  In  so  doing  the  patient 
very  often  betrays  the  fact  of  being  "detected" 
through  smiling,  laughing,  blushing,  or  some  other 
sign  of  embarrassment;  not  infrequently  he  himself 
confirms  the  correctness  of  our  surmise  or  brings 
at  once  memories  of  his  past  that  strengthen  our 
supposition. 

I  had  to  interpret  one  of  the  dreams  of  an  hys- 
terical patient  as  a  wish-phantasy;  I  told  her  that 
this  dream  betrayed  her  dissatisfaction  with  her  sit- 
uation, her  desire  for  a  better  educated  and  more 
agreeable  husband  in  a  more  distinguished  position, 
and  especially  the  wish  for  more  beautiful  clothes. 
At  this  moment  the  patient's  attention  was  deflected 
from  the  analysis  by  the  sudden  onset  of  toothache. 
She  begged  me  to  give  her  something  to  ease  the  pain, 
or  at  least  to  get  her  a  glass  of  water.  Instead  of 
doing  so,  I  explained  to  the  patient  that  by  the 
toothache  she  was  perhaps  only  expressing  in  a  meta- 
phorical way  the  Hungarian  saying  "My  tooth  is 


Symptom-Constructions  During  Analysis       197 

aching  for  these  good  things."  3  I  said  this  not  at 
all  in  a  confident  tone,  nor  had  she  any  idea  that 
I  expected  the  pain  to  cease  after  the  communica- 
tion. Yet,  quite  spontaneously  and  very  astonished, 
she  declared  that  the  toothache  had  suddenly  ceased. 

Subsequent  questioning  of  the  patient  established 
the  fact  that  she  had  striven  to  blind  herself  to  the 
trying  situation  in  which  she  found  herself  on  marry- 
ing beneath  her  station.  The  interpretation  of  the 
dream  disclosed  her  unfulfilled  wishes  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  she  could  scarcely  escape  its  truth.  She 
managed  nevertheless  in  the  last  moment  to  let  the 
"unpleasantness-censor"  prevail,  to  drive  the  recog- 
nition of  my  interpretation  into  the  sphere  of  bodily 
feeling  by  means  of  the  association-bridge  "My 
tooth  aches  for  it,"  and  thus  to  transform  into 
toothache  the  painful  insight. 

The  unconscious  utilisation  of  this  current  expres- 
sion was  perhaps  the  final,  but  not  the  only,  condition 
of  the  symptom-formation.  Psychical  space,  just  as 
physical  space,  has  several  dimensions,  so  that  the 
site  of  a  point  in  it  can  only  be  determined  exactly 
by  means  of  several  coordinate  axes.  Put  into  psy- 
cho-analytical language,  that  is:  every  symptom  is 
over-determined.  Ever  since  childhood  the  patient  in 
question  had  fought  against  an  unusually  strong 

'  (Compare  the  English  expression:    "My  mouth  waters  for, 
etc."    Transl.) 


198          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

inclination  to  masturbation,  and  with  masturbators 
the  teeth  have  a  special  symbolic  significance.4  The 
factor  of  bodily  predisposition  also  has  always  to  be 
considered  in  cases  of  this  sort. 

On  another  occasion  the  same  patient  brought  her 
repressed  infantile-erotic  phantasies  to  expression 
in  the  form  of  a  declaration  of  love  addressed  to  the 
physician,  and  received  by  way  of  reply — instead  of 
the  hoped-for  response — an  explanation  of  the  trans- 
ference character  of  this  access  of  feeling.  There- 
upon she  immediately  felt  a  curious  paraesthesia  in 
the  mucous  membrane  of  the  tongue,  crying  out: 
"My  tongue  suddenly  feels  as  though  it  were  scalded 
(abgebriiht)"  At  first  she  rejected  my  explanation 
that  with  the  word  "abgebruht"  she  was  only  ex- 
love  advances,  but  the  sudden  and  startling  disap- 
pearance of  the  paraesthesia  after  my  explanation 
gave  her  food  for  thought,  and  she  presently  admit- 
ted that  I  had  been  right  in  my  surmise.  In  this 
case  also  the  preference  for  the  tongue  as  the  site  of 
symptom-formation  was  determined  by  several  con- 
ditions, the  analysis  of  which  made  possible  the  pene- 
tration into  the  deeper  layers  of  the  unconscious 
complexes. 

It  is  very  common  indeed  for  patients  to  express  a 

suddenly  appearing  mental  suffering  by  transitory 

cardiac  pains,  the  feeling  of  bitterness  by  a  bitter 

feeling  in  the  tongue,  and  care  by  a  sudden  sense  of 

4  (S«e  Ch.  VI,  p.  163.    Transl.) 


Symptom-Constructions  During  Analysis        199 

pressure  on  the  head.  One  neurotic  used  to  utter  his 
aggressive  intentions  directed  against  me  (more  cor- 
rectly: against  his  father)  in  the  form  of  sensations 
which  he  felt  on  those  parts  of  the  body  where  his 
unconscious  wanted  to  injure  me:  the  feeling  as 
though  he  had  suddenly  received  a  blow  on  the  head 
turned  out  to  be  a  murderous  intention,  a  pricking 
in  the  cardiac  region  to  be  one  of  stabbing.  (Con- 
sciously he  is  a  masochist  and  his  aggressive  phanta- 
sies can  enter  consciousness  only  in  the  form  of  the 
self-borne  talion  punishment — an  eye  for  an  eye:  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth. )  Another  patient  regularly  felt  a 
peculiar  sense  of  giddiness  as  soon  as  we  came  to 
talk  about  matters  that  severely  tested  his  lack  of 
self-confidence.  The  analysis  led  to  infantile  experi- 
ences in  which,  while  at  a  considerable  height,  he  felt 
himself  so  helpless  that  he  became  giddy.  The  sud- 
den appearance  of  heat  or  cold  sensations  may  sig- 
nify emotional  stirrings  (with  a  corresponding 
name)  in  the  patient  or,  conversely,  may  represent 
the  idea  that  the  patient  surmises  the  existence  of 
such  feeling  in  the  physician. 

A  "frightful  sleepiness"  overcame  one  patient 
every  time  that  she  wanted  to  escape  by  a  short  cut 
the  analysis  which  was  getting  disagreeable  to  her. 
Another  one  used  this  means  to  indicate  her  uncon- 
scious erotic  phantasies,  which  were  associated  with 
this  sleepy  condition;  she  was  one  of  those  persons 
who  could  endure  sexual  phantasies  only  when  they 


200          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

were  without  self-reproach,  e.  g.  only  in  the  form 
of  an  imaginary  rape. 

These  transitory  conversions  are  also  to  be  ob- 
served, though  much  less  often,  in  the  sphere  of  mo- 
tility.  By  this  I  do  not  mean  the  "symptomatic 
actions"  in  the  sense  of  Freud's  Psychopathology  of 
Everyday  Life,  which  are  higher,  combined  and  co- 
ordinated actions,  but  isolated,  and  sometimes  pain- 
ful, spasms  in  individual  muscles  or  suddenly  appear- 
ing states  of  weakness  resembling  paralysis. 

A  neurotic  who  wanted  to  remain  homosexual,  and 
who  sought  by  every  possible  means  to  escape  from 
the  heterosexual  erotism  that  was  powerfully  press- 
ing forward,  got  a  cramp  in  the  left  leg  every  time 
in  the  analysis  that  he  managed  to  suppress  phan- 
tasies which  threatened  to  produce  an  erection.  He 
discovered  for  himself  the  symbolic  identification 
"Leg:=Penis,  Cramp=Erection."  Drawing  in  of 
the  belly-wall  with  or  without  the  feeling  of  retrac- 
tion of  the  penis  occurred  with  one  patient  every 
time  that  he  took  more  liberties  with  the  physician 
than  his  infantile  cowed  unconscious  would  allow  him. 
Analysis  shewed  the  cramp  to  be  a  defensive  meas- 
ure against  the  feared  punishment — castration.  Not 
infrequently  a  convulsive  clenching  of  the  fist  is  re- 
vealed to  be  an  inclination  to  assault,  a  contraction 
of  the  masseters  to  be  a  refusal  to  speak  or  a  desire 
to  bite. 

Transitory  states  of  weakness  in  the  whole  mus- 


Symptom-Const  ructions  During  Analysis       201 

culature  or  in  certain  groups  of  muscles  are  some- 
times to  be  explained  as  symptoms  of  moral  weakness 
or  as  a  not  wanting  to  carry  out  some  action.  The 
conflict  between  two  tendencies  of  equal  strength  can 
express  itself,  as  in  dreams,  in  an  inhibition  of  cer- 
tain movements. 

In  the  analysis  of  these  passing  conversion-symp- 
toms one  learns  as  a  rule  that  something  of  the  kind 
has  already  happened  before  in  the  patient's  life ;  one 
has  then  to  search  for  the  causes  that  evoked  them 
on  the  previous  occasion.  There  occur,  however,  also 
transitory  symptoms  that  seem  to  the  patient  to  be 
.quite  new,  and  which,  according  to  him,  have  never 
been  experienced  before  the  analysis ;  even  in  such 
cases  it  nevertheless  remains  for  the  most  part  unde- 
cided whether  they  had  not  merely  escaped  the  pa- 
tient's introspection,  which  was  less  trained  before 
the  analysis.  A  priori,  however,  one  cannot  dismiss 
the  possibility  that  the  analysis,  penetrating  into  the 
disagreeable  layers  of  the  mind  and  disturbing  its 
apparent  rest,  can  force  the  patient  to  make  use  of 
quite  new  possibilities  of  symptom-formation.  In 
ordinary  life  or  in  a  non-analytic  treatment  the 
thought-connections  would  have  come  to  a  stop  far 
enough  from  the  disagreeable  areas. 

Transitory  obsessional  phenomena  may  also  occur 
in  the  treatment.  There  is  something  similar  to  an 
obsession  in  every  association,  however  senseless,  that 
is  a  conscious  substitute  for  an  intelligent  but  re- 


202          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

pressed  idea  ("Replacement-associations,"  according 
to  Freud).  Apparently  senseless  ideas  of  a  true 
obsessional  character  are  sometimes  produced,  how- 
ever, which  definitely  obsess  the  patient's  thinking 
and  yield  only  to  an  analytic  explication.  An  obses- 
sional patient,  for  instance,  suddenly  interrupted  the 
free  association  with  the  thought:  He  couldn't  un- 
derstand why  the  word  "window"  should  mean  just 
a  window;  why  the  letters  w-i-n-d-o-w,  which  after 
all  are  only  senseless  sounds  and  tones,  should  sig- 
nify a  corporeal  object.  He  could  not  be  brought  to 
give  any  further  free  associations:  the  idea  of  the. 
meaning  of  the  word  window  so  strongly  dominated 
him  that  he  was  unable  to  produce  any  new  thought. 
For  a  while  I  allowed  myself  to  be  deceived  by  the  in- 
telligent patient,  took  up  his  idea,  and  discussed  the 
theory  of  speech-formation.  But  I  soon  saw  that 
the  patient  was  not  interested  in  the  explanation,  the 
idea  remaining  in  its  obsessional  form.  Then  it  oc- 
curred to  me  that  it  might  be  a  piece  of  resistance 
and  I  wondered  how  it  was  to  be  resolved.  I  re- 
flected on  what  had  preceded  this  obsessional  asso- 
ciation in  the  analysis,  and  recalled  that  just  be- 
fore it  occurred  I  had  explained  to  the  patient  the 
meaning  of  a  symbol  and  that  he  had  seemed  to  ac- 
cept my  explanation  with  an  acquiescing  "yes."  I 
now  expressed  my  surmise  that  the  patient  had  not 
been  able  to  agree  with  this  explanation,  but  had 
repressed  his  contradiction.  The  repressed  incredu- 


Symptom-Constructions  During  Analysis        203 

lity  then  returned  in  the  distorted  guise  of  the 
thought  "why  should  the  letters  w-i-n-d-o-w  signify 
a  window?"  This  should  really  run :  "Why  does  the 
symbol  just  explained  signify  just  that  object?" 
With  this  explanation  the  interruption  was  removed. 

Indirect  contradiction,  which  here  quite  uncon- 
sciously formed  an  obsession,  evidently  has  its  source 
in  similar  conscious  reactions  of  small  children  who 
through  their  lack  of  courage  and  self-confidence  are 
compelled  to  adopt  this  mediate  speech  when  they 
want  to  contradict  an  adult.5 

Another  obsessional  patient  let  his  incredulity  be 
recognised  in  a  different  way.  He  began  not  to  un- 
derstand any  foreign  words  that  I  used,  and  then,  as 
I  faithfully  translated  them  for  him  for  a  while,  he 
maintained  that  he  could  not  longer  understand  his 
mother-tongue.  He  behaved  absolutely  like  a  de- 
ment. I  then  explained  to  him  that  with  this  lack  of 
understanding  he  was  unconsciously  expressing  his 
disbelief.  Really  it  was  me  (my  remarks)  that  he 
wanted  to  mock,  but  he  repressed  this  inclination  and 
acted  like  an  idiot,  as  if  to  say:  If  I  were  to  accept 
this  nonsense,  I  would  be  a  fool.  From  now  on  he 
understood  my  explanations  perfectly  well.6 

6 1  said  once  to  a  boy,  aged  five,  that  he  need  not  be  afraid 
of  a  lion,  for  the  lion  would  run  away  if  only  he  would  look 
him  straight  in  the  eyes.  His  next  question  was:  "And  a  lamb 
can  sometimes  eat  up  a  wolf,  can't  it?"  "You  didn't  believe 
my  story  about  the  lion,"  said  I.  "No,  not  really — but  don't 
be  cross  with  me  for  it,"  answered  the  little  diplomatist. 

•Analytical  experience  makes  it  highly  probable  that  many 


£04  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

A  third  obsessional  patient  was  curiously  obsessed 
by  the  Slavonic  term  for  doctor  ("Lekar").  The 
obsessional  impulse  came  from  the  German  homonym 
of  the  word  (=licker),  a  term  of  abuse  which  the 
patient,  a  man  of  high  ethical  principles,  could  bring 
out  only  indirectly. 

In  rare  and  exceptional  cases  true  hallucinations 
are  evoked  in  the  analysis  hour.  (Much  more  often, 
of  course,  come  memories  of  especial  clearness  and 
vividness  in  respect  to  which,  however,  the  patient 
can  none  the  less  still  behave  in  an  objective  way, 
*.  e.  he  can  correctly  estimate  their  unreality.) 

One  of  my  patients  shewed  a  special  capacity  for 
hallucinations,  constantly  making  use  of  them  when 
the  analysis  came  upon  certain  things  that  were  pain- 
ful to  her.  On  such  occasions  she  would  suddenly 
drop  the  thread  of  the  free  associations  and  produce 
instead  pure  hallucinations  with  a  fearful  content: 
she  sprang  up,  crouched  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  and 
with  signs  of  acute  dread  made  convulsive  movements 
of  defence  and  protection,  after  which  she  soon  got 
calm  again.  When  she  came  to  herself  she  could 
tell  me  exactly  the  content  of  the  hallucinated  proc- 
esses, and  it  turned  out  that  they  were  phantasies 

intelligent  children  at  the  stage  of  repression  marked  by  the 
latency  period,  before  they  have  gone  through  the  "great  in- 
timidation," regard  adults  as  dangerous  fools,  to  whom  one  can- 
not tell  the  truth  without  running  the  risk  of  being  punished 
for  it,  and  whose  inconsistencies  and  follies  have  therefore  to 
be  taken  into  consideration.  In  this  children  are  not  so  very 
wrong. 


Symptom-Constructions  During  Analysis        205 

presented  in  a  dramatic  or  symbolic  form  (fights  with 
wild  animals,  rape  scenes,  etc.),  which  were  connected 
with  the  associations  immediately  preceding  the  hal- 
lucinations ;  the  analysis  of  them  mostly  brought  to 
light  new  memory  material,  affording  her  great  re- 
lief. The  hallucinatory-symbolic  representation  was 
thus  merely  the  last  means  of  escaping  the  conscious 
recognition  of  certain  pieces  of  insight.  It  could 
also  be  neatly  observed  in  this  case  how  the  associa- 
tions gradually  approached  conscious  knowledge, 
and  then  suddenly  glided  away  in  almost  the  last 
moment,  allowing  the  excitement  to  regress  on  to 
the  sense  area. 

It  is  not  rare  for  transitory  illusionary  deceptions 
(especially  of  the  sense  of  smell)  to  appear  in  the 
analysis  hour.  In  one  case  an  illusionary  "change  in 
the  perceptual  world"  could  be  observed  in  the  analy- 
sis. I  was  just  striving  to  make  clear  to  a  patient 
her  excessive  ambition,  arising  from  narcissistic  fix- 
ation, and  said  to  her  that  she  might  be  happier  if 
she  could  properly  appreciate  this,  renounce  a  part 
of  the  phantasies  of  self-importance,  and  be  content 
with  smaller  successes.  In  this  moment  she  called 
out,  her  face  glowing:  "It  is  wonderful,  now  I  sud- 
denly see  everything,  the  room,  the  bookcase,  so  'con- 
cretely' clear  in  front  of  me;  everything  has  bright 
and  natural  colours  and  is  so  plastically  arranged  in 
space."  On  further  questioning  I  learnt  that  for 
years  she  had  not  been  able  to  see  so  "concretely," 


206  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

the  outer  world  appearing  to  her  dull,  faded,  and 
flat.  The  explanation  was  as  follows:  As  a  spoilt 
child  she  obtained  the  satisfaction  of  all  her  desires ; 
since  she  had  been  grown  up  the  perfidious  world  had 
not  been  so  considerate  to  her  wish-fancies,  where- 
upon "she  had  not  been  pleased  with  the  world ;"  she 
projected  this  feeling  into  the  optical  sphere  by  see- 
ing the  world  since  then  changed  in  the  way  described. 
The  prospect  of  reaching  new  possibilities  of  happi- 
ness through  renouncing  a  part  of  the  wish-fulfil- 
ments was  similarly  projected  into  the  optical 
sphere,  and  expressed  itself  there  as  illumination  and 
more  vivid  reality  of  the  perceptual  world.  These 
variations  in  optical  excitability  may  be  conceived 
as  "autosymbolic  phenomena"  in  Silberer's  sense,  as 
symbolic  self-perception  of  psychical  processes  of 
the  "functional  category."  In  this  case,  by  the  way, 
it  would  be  more  correct  to  speak  of  transitory  dis- 
appearance of  a  symptom  than  of  transitory  crea- 
tion of  one. 

Transitory  character-regressions  during  the  treat- 
ment I  should  call  a  pretty  frequent  occurrence,  the 
essence  of  which  consists  in  certain  character  traits 
temporarily  losing  their  sublimations  and  suddenly 
regressing  on  to  the  primitive,  infantile  level  of  in- 
stinct life  from  which  they  had  taken  their  origin. 

It  is  not  rare,  for  instance,  with  certain  patients 
for  an  acute  need  for  passing  water  to  develop  in  the 
analysis  hour.  Many  hold  out  until  the  end  of  the 


Symptom-Constructions  \Durmg  Analysis        207 

sitting,  others  suddenly  get  up  and  have  to  leave  the 
room — sometimes  with  signs  of  anxiety — in  order  to 
attend  to  the  need.  In  cases  where  the  natural  ex- 
planation of  the  occurrence  could  be  excluded  (and 
my  communication  concerns  only  such),  I  was  able 
to  establish  the  following  psychical  origin  of  the  ves- 
ical  excitation:  It  was  always  with  very  ambitious 
and  vain  patients,  who  did  not  admit  their  vanity 
to  themselves,  and  who  felt  their  ambitiousness 
wounded  in  the  most  sensitive  way  by  the  psychical 
material  brought  out  in  the  analysis  hour,  also  feel- 
ing discouraged  by  the  physician,  without  having 
made  this  wounding  of  their  ego  completely  con- 
scious, or  logically  working  it  over  and  overcoming 
it.  With  one  of  these  patients  the  parallelism  be- 
tween the  more  or  less  wounding  content  of  the  an- 
alytic conversation  and  the  desire  to  micturate  was 
so  noticeable  that  I  could  at  will  evoke  the  latter  by 
dwelling  on  a  theme  that  was  plainly  disagreeable 
to  the  patient.  Analytic  talking  out  on  this  theme 
can  reverse  the  "character-regression"  or  hinder  its 
reappearance. 

An  occurrence  of  this  sort  allows  the  process  of 
regression,  established  by  Freud,  to  be  observed — as 
it  were  in  flagranti.  It  shews  that  a  sublimated  char- 
acter trait  can  in  the  event  of  denial  (of  gratifica- 
tion)— assuming  the  corresponding  sites  of  fixation 
in  the  psychical  development — really  fall  back  on 
to  the  infantile  level  at  which  the  satisfaction  of 


208          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

the  not  yet  sublimated  impulse  met  with  no  hin- 
drance. The  saying  "on  revient  toujours  a  ses  pre- 
miers amours"  finds  here  its  psychological  confirma- 
tion ;  the  person  who  is  disappointed  in  his  ambition 
reaches  back  towards  the  auto-erotic  foundation  of 
this  passion.7 

Temporary  rectal  troubles  (diarrhoea,  constipa- 
tion) often  reveal  themselves  in  the  analysis  as  re- 
gressions of  the  anal  character.  One  patient  suffered 
from  acute  diarrhoea  towards  the  end  of  the  month, 
when  she  had  to  send  to  her  parents  means  of  support 
that  in  her  unconscious  she  only  unwillingly  parted 
with.  Another  compensated  himself  for  the  physi- 
cian's fees  by  producing  large  quantities  of  intesti- 
nal gas. 

When  a  patient  feels  himself  unkindly  treated  by 
the  physician  he  takes  to  onanism,  if  there  is  a  cor- 
responding auto-erotic  fixation.  He  brings  in  the 
form  of  this  transference  the  confession  of  his  child- 
hood masturbation.  As  a  child  he  gave  up  self-grati- 
fication only  in  exchange  for  object-love  (love  of  the 
parents).  If  he  feels  himself  disappointed  in  this  kind 
of  love  he  relapses.  Even  patients  who  cannot  re- 
member ever  having  masturbated  may  one  day  come 
with  a  confession  of  dismay  that  they  have  suddenly 
had  to  give  in  to  an  irresistible  impulse  to  self-grati- 
fication. 

*  (Ambitiousness  is   unconsciously  associated  with  urethra! 
erotism.    Transl.) 


Symptom-Constructions   During  Analysis        209 

(These  sudden  regressions  to  anal,  urethral,  and 
genital  auto-erotism  also  explain  why  the  disposition 
of  these  erotisms  to  function  in  anxiety  states  \e.  g. 
dread  of  examinations]  is  so  strong.  The  fact  also 
that  in  his  fearful  dread  a  man  being  hanged  relaxes 
both  sphincters  and  ejaculates  semen  may  be  due, 
apart  from  direct  nervous  stimulation,  also  to  a 
final  convulsive  regression  to  the  pleasure  sources  of 
life.  I  once  saw  a  nephritic  patient  aged  seventy, 
who  was  tortured  by  acute  headache  and  cutaneous 
irritation,  carrying  out  movements  of  onanism  in 
his  despair.) 

With  male  neurotics  who  feel  themselves  unkindly 
treated  by  the  physician  homosexual  obsessions  may 
appear,  which  often  refer  to  the  person  of  the  latter. 
This  is  a  proof,  which  might  almost  be  called  ex- 
perimental, that  friendship  is  essentially  sublimated 
homosexuality,  which  in  case  of  denial  is  apt  to  re- 
gress on  to  its  primitive  level. 

Expression  displacements.  I  noticed  with  one  pa- 
tient that  he  yawned  with  striking  frequency.  I  then 
remarked  that  the  yawning  accompanied  just  those 
analytic  conversations  whose  content,  since  it  was 
important  to  him  although  disagreeable,  would  more 
suitably  have  evoked  interest  than  boredom.  An- 
other patient  who  came  to  treatment  soon  after  this 
brought  me  what  I  believe  to  be  the  solution  of  this 
peculiar  phenomenon.  She  also  yawned  often  and  at 
inappropriate  times,  but  in  her  case  the  yawning 


210          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

was  sometimes  accompanied  with  a  flow  of  tears. 
That  gave  me  the  idea  that  these  patients'  yawning 
might  be  a  distorted  sigh,  and  in  both  cases  the 
analysis  confirmed  my  surmise.  The  censorship  ef- 
fected in  both  cases  the  repression  of  certain  dis- 
agreeable emotional  states  that  were  aroused  through 
the  analysis  (pain,  grief),  but  it  was  unable  to  bring 
about  a  complete  suppression,  only  a  displacement  of 
the  movements  of  expression,  one  that  was  enough, 
however,  to  conceal  from  consciousness  the  real  char- 
acter of  the  emotional  state.  On  turning  my  atten- 
tion, after  these  observations,  to  the  movements  of 
expression  with  other  patients  as  well,  I  found  that 
there  are  other  forms  of  "expression  displacements." 
One  patient,  for  instance,  had  to  cough  every  time 
he  wanted  to  avoid  saying  something  to  me;  the  in- 
tended, but  suppressed,  speech  then  came  through 
nevertheless  in  the  form  of  a  cough.  We  see  that 
the  displacement  from  one  emotional  expression  to 
another  takes  place  along  the  line  of  physiological 
vicinity  (yawning — sighing;  talking — coughing).  A 
cough  may  also  represent  a  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously intended,  and  then  suppressed,  laugh,  in 
which  case  the  displaced  expression  of  the  emotional 
state — as  with  a  pure  hysterical  symptom — contains 
also  the  punishment  for  the  satisfaction  of  pleasure. 
Neurotic  women  often  cough  when  they  are  being 
medically  examined,  e.  g.,  auscultated ;  this  also  I  be- 
lieve may  be  regarded  as  a  displacement  of  the 


Symptom-Constructions  During  Analysis       811 

movements  of  laughter  elicited  by  unconscious  erotic 
phantasies.  After  what  has  been  said  it  will  cause  no 
surprise  if  I  add  that  in  one  case  I  was  able  to  inter- 
pret a  temporary  hiccough  as  representing  a  sob  of 
despair.  These  symptoms  that  only  appear  transi- 
torily in  the  analysis  also  throw  light  on  the  chronic 
hysterical  symptoms  of  the  same  kind  (spasms  of 
laughter  and  of  crying).  Really  incredible — but 
none  the  less  true — is  the  occurrence  of  an  "expres- 
sion displacement"  to  which  Professor  Freud  called 
my  attention.  Many  patients  produce  a  rumbling  in 
the  stomach  when  they  have  concealed  some  associa- 
tions. The  suppressed  speech  is  turned  into  a  ven- 
triloquism (  Bauchreden) . 

Besides  the  didactic  value  for  physicians  and  pa- 
tients, discussed  at  the  beginning  of  the  paper,  these 
"transitory  symptom-formations"  possess  a  certain 
practical  and  theoretical  significance.  They  offer  us 
points  of  attack  for  dealing  with  the  patient's 
strongest  resistances,  concealed  as  transferences,  and 
are  thus  of  practical,  technical  value  for  the  analy- 
sis. And  in  giving  us  the  opportunity  to  watch 
symptoms  of  disease  arise  and  disappear  before  our 
eyes,  they  throw  light  on  these  processes  in  general. 
They  enable  us  to  form  theoretic  conceptions  of  the 
dynamics  of  disease,  at  least  with  many  kinds  of 
disease. 

We  know  from  Freud  that  a  neurotic  disorder 
comes  about  in  three  stages:  the  infantile  fixation  (a 


Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

disturbance  in  the  development  of  the  sexual  hun- 
ger) constitutes  the  foundation  of  every  neurosis; 
the  second  stage  is  that  of  the  repression,  which  re- 
mains still  without  symptoms;  the  third  that  of  the 
outbreak  of  the  disorder,  the  symptom-formation. 

The  experiences  gathered  here  of  "transitory 
symptom-formations"  make  it  probable  that  in  the 
great  neuroses,  as  in  these  neuroses  en  miniature, 
symptoms  are  formed  only  when  repressed  portions 
of  complexes  threaten,  for  internal  or  external  rea- 
sons, to  enter  into  associative  connection  with  con- 
sciousness, t.  e.  to  become  conscious,  and  when  there- 
by the  equilibrium  of  a  previous  repression  is  dis- 
turbed. The  "unpleasantness"  censorship  watching 
over  the  calm  of  consciousness  then  manages  in  the 
last  moment,  so  to  speak,  to  deflect  the  excitation 
from  the  progressive  path,  t.  e.  its  path  into  con- 
sciousness, and — since  the  driving  back  into  the  old 
repression  situation  does  not  succeed  well — to  let  a 
part  of  the  excitation  and  of  the  unconscious  psy- 
chical structures  find  at  least  a  distorted  expression 
in  symptoms. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

STAGES  IN  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  SENSE  OF 
REALITY  * 


development  of  the  mentai  lorms  of  activ- 
L  ity  in  the  individual  consists,  as  Freud  has 
shewn,  in  the  resolution  of  the  originally  prevailing 
pleasure-principle,  and  the  repression  mechanism  pe- 
culiar to  it,  by  the  adjustment  to  reality,  i.  e.  by  the 
testing  of  reality  that  is  based  on  judgment.  Thus 
arises  out  of  the  "primary"  psychical  stage,  such  as 
is  displayed  in  the  mental  activities  of  primitive  be- 
ings (animals,  savages,  children),  and  in  primitive 
mental  states  (dreams,  neurosis,  phantasy),  the  sec- 
ondary stage  of  the  normal  man  in  waking  thought. 
At  the  beginning  of  its  development  the  new-born 
babe  seeks  to  attain  a  state  of  satisfaction  merely 
through  insistent  wishing  (imagining),  whereby  it 
simply  ignores  (represses)  the  unsatisfying  reality, 
picturing  to  itself  as  present,  on  the  contrary,  the 
wished-for,  but  lacking,  satisfaction  ;  it  attempts, 
therefore,  to  conceal  without  effort  all  its  needs  by 
means  of  positive  and  negative  hallucinations.  "It 

1  Published  in  the  Internal.  Zeitschr,  f  .  arztl.  Psychoanalyse, 
1913. 

213 


21 4>          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

was  only  the  non-appearance  of  the  expected  satis- 
faction, the  disappointment,  that  led  to  the  abandon- 
ment of  this  attempt  at  satisfaction  by  the  halluci- 
natory method.  Instead,  the  psychical  apparatus 
had  to  decide  to  represent  the  actual  circumstances 
of  the  outer  world  to  itself,  and  to  strive  to  alter 
reality.  With  this  a  new  principle  of  mental  activity 
was  initiated ;  not  what  was  pleasant  was  any  longer 
imagined,  but  what  was  real,  even  though  it  should 
be  unpleasant.'*  2 

The  significant  essay  in  which  Freud  displayed  to 
us  this  fundamental  fact  of  psychogenesis  is  confined 
to  the  sharp  differentiation  between  the  pleasure  and 
the  reality  stages.  Freud  also  concerns  himself  here, 
it  is  true,  with  transitional  states  in  which  both  prin- 
ciples of  mental  functioning  coexist  (phantasy,  art, 
sexual  life),  but  he  leaves  for  the  present  unan- 
swered the  question  whether  the  development  of  the 
secondary  form  of  mental  activity  from  the  pri- 
mary takes  place  gradually  or  in  a  series  of  steps, 
and  whether  such  stages  of  development  are  to  be 
recognised,  or  their  derivatives  demonstrated,  in  the 
mental  life  of  the  normal  or  abnormal. 

An  earlier  work  of  Freud's,  however,  in  which  he 
affords  us  deep  insight  into  the  mental  life  of  ob- 
sessional patients,3  calls  attention  to  a  fact  from 

*  Freud.    "Fonnulierungen  uber  die  zwei  Prinzipien  des  psy- 
chischen  Geschehens."    Jahrb.    Bd.  III.  S.  1. 

•  Freud.    "Bemerkungen  iiber  eincn  Fall  von  Zwangsneurose." 
Jahrb.  Bd.  I.  S.  411. 


Stages  In  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality    215 

which  as  a  starting  point  one  may  attempt  to  bridge 
over  the  gap  between  the  pleasure  and  the  reality 
stages  of  mental  development. 

Obsessional  patients  who  have  submitted  them- 
selves to  a  psycho-analysis — so  it  runs  in  that  work 
— admit  to  us  that  they  cannot  help  being  convinced 
of  the  omnipotence  of  their  thoughts,  feelings,  and 
wishes,  good  and  bad.  However  enlightened  they  may 
be,  however  much  their  academic  knowledge  and  their 
reason  may  strive  to  the  contrary,  they  have  the  feel- 
ing that  their  wishes  in  some  inexplicable  way  get 
realised.  Of  the  truth  of  this  state  of  affairs  any 
analyst  can  convince  himself  as  often  as  he  likes. 
He  will  learn  that  the  weal  and  woe  of  other  people, 
indeed  their  life  and  death,  seem  to  the  obsessional 
patient  to  depend  on  certain  thought  processes  and 
actions,  in  themselves  harmless,  on  which  he  engages. 
The  patient  has  to  think  of  certain  magical  formu- 
las, or  carry  out  a  certain  action ;  otherwise  a  great 
misfortune  will  befall  this  or  that  person  (mostly  a 
near  relative).  This  conviction,  though  felt  to  be 
superstitious,  is  not  shaken  even  by  repeated  ex- 
periences to  the  contrary.4 

Leaving  aside  the  fact  that  analysis  reveals  such 
obsessive  thoughts  and  actions  to  be  the  substitutes 
of  wish-impulses  that  are  logically  correct,  but  which 

4  This  article  was  finished  before  use  could  be  made  of 
Freud's  article  on  "Animismus,  Magie  und  Allmacht  der  Ge- 
danken"  (Imago,  Jahrg.  II,  Heft  I),  which  deals  with  the 
same  topic  from  other  points  of  view. 


216  Contributions  to  Psyclw-Analysis 

on  account  of  their  intolerableness  have  been  re- 
pressed,5 and  turning  our  attention  exclusively  to  the 
peculiar  manifestation  of  this  obsessional  symptom, 
we  must  admit  that  it  constitutes  a  problem  in  itself. 

Psycho-analytical  experience  has  made  it  clear  to 
me  that  this  symptom,  the  feeling  of  omnipotence,  is 
a  projection  of  the  observation  that  one  has  slavish- 
ly to  obey  certain  irresistible  instincts.  The  obses- 
sional neurosis  constitutes  a  relapse  of  the  mental 
life  to  that  stage  of  child-development  characterised, 
amongst  other  things,  by  there  being  as  yet  no  inhib- 
iting, postponing,  reflecting  thought-activity  inter- 
posed between  wishing  and  acting,  the  wish-fulfilling 
movement  following  spontaneously  and  unhesitating- 
ly on  the  wishing — an  averting  movement  away  from 
something  disagreeable,  or  an  approach  towards 
something  agreeable.6 

A  part  of  the  mental  life,  more  or  less  removed 
from  consciousness,  thus  remains  with  the  obsession- 
al patient — as  the  analysis  shews — on  this  childhood 
level  in  consequence  of  an  arrest  in  development  (fix- 
ation), and  makes  wishing  equivalent  to  acting  be- 

•  Freud.  Sammlung  kleiner  Schriften  zur  Neurosenlehre. 
1906.  S.  45  und  86. 

•It  is  well  known  that  small  children  almost  reflexly  stretch 
out  their  hands  after  every  object  that  shines  or  in  any  other 
way  pleases  them.  They  are  to  begin  with  also  incapable  of 
foregoing  any  "naughtiness"  that  yields  them  any  kind  of 
pleasure,  whenever  the  stimulus  causing  this  appears.  A  young 
boy  who  had  been  forbidden  to  bore  his  finger  into  his  nose 
answered  his  mother,  "I  don't  want  to,  but  my  hand  does  and 
I  can't  prevent  it." 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality     217 

cause — just  on  account  of  the  repression,  of  the 
distraction  of  attention — this  repressed  portion  of 
the  mental  life  was  not  able  to  learn  the  difference 
between  the  two  activities,  while  the  ego  itself,  which 
has  developed  free  from  repression  and  grown  wise 
through  education  and  experience,  can  only  laugh  at 
this  equating  of  the  two.  Hence  the  inner  discord- 
ance of  the  obsessional  patient,  the  inexplicable  oc- 
currence of  enlightenment  and  superstition  side  by 
side. 

Not  being  quite  satisfied  with  this  explanation  of 
the  feeling  of  omnipotence  as  an  autosymbolic  phe- 
nomenon,7 I  put  to  myself  the  question:  Whence 
then  does  the  child  get  the  boldness  to  set  thinking 
and  acting  as  equivalents?  Whence  comes  the  feel- 
ing of  obviousness  with  which  it  stretches  out  its 
hand  after  all  objects,  after  the  lamp  hanging  above 
him  as  after  the  shining  moon,  in  the  sure  expecta- 
tion of  reaching  it  with  this  gesture  and  drawing 
it  into  the  domain  of  its  power? 

I  then  recalled  that  according  to  Freud's  assump- 
tion "a  piece  of  the  old  grandiose  delusion  of  child- 
hood was  honestly  confessed"  in  the  omnipotence 
phantasy  of  the  obsessional  patient,  and  I  tried  to 
trace  out  the  origin  and  fate  of  this  delusion.  In 
this  way  I  hoped  also  to  learn  something  new  about 
the  development  of  the  ego  from  the  pleasure  to 

1  This  is  what  Silberer  terms  the  self-perceptions  that  are 
symbolically  represented. 


fcl'8  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

the  reality  principle,  since  it  seemed  to  me  probable 
that  the  replacement  (to  which  we  are  compelled  by 
experience)  of  the  childhood  megalomania  by  the 
recognition  of  the  power  of  natural  forces  composes 
the  essential  content  of  the  development  of  the  ego. 

Freud  declares  an  organisation  that  is  a  slave  to 
the  pleasure  principle,  and  which  can  neglect  the 
reality  of  the  outer  world,  to  be  a  fiction,  one,  how- 
ever, which  is  almost  realised  in  the  young  infant, 
when  one  only  takes  into  account  the  maternal  care.8 
I  might  add  that  there  is  a  stage  in  human  develop- 
ment that  realises  this  ideal  of  a  being  subservient 
only  to  pleasure,  and  that  does  so  not  only  in  imagi- 
nation and  approximately,  but  in  actual  fact  and 
completely. 

I  mean  the  period  of  human  life  passed  in  the 
womb.  In  this  state  the  human  being  lives  as  a  para- 
site of  the  mother's  body.  For  the  nascent  being  an 
"outer  world"  exists  only  in  a  very  restricted  de- 
gree; all  its  needs  for  protection,  warmth,  and 
nourishment  are  assured  by  the  mother.  Indeed,  it 
does  not  even  have  the  trouble  of  taking  the  oxy- 
gen and  nourishment  that  is  brought  to  it,  for  it  is 
seen  to  that  these  materials,  through  suitable  ar- 
rangements, arrive  directly  into  its  blood-vessels.  In 
comparison  with  this  an  intestinal  worm,  for  ex- 
ample, has  a  good  deal  of  work  to  perform,  "tc 

•Jahrb.  Bd.  III.  S.  2.  Footnote.  See  also  the  controversy 
between  Bleuler  and  Freud  on  this  question  (Bleuler,  "Das 
autistische  Denken."  Jahrb.  Bd.  IV.). 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality     219 

change  the  outer  world,"  in  order  to  maintain  itself. 
All  care  for  the  continuance  of  the  foetus,  however, 
is  transferred  to  the  mother.  If,  therefore,  the  hu- 
man being  possesses  a  mental  life  when  in  the  womb, 
although  only  an  unconscious  one, — and  it  would  be 
foolish  to  believe  that  the  mind  begins  to  function 
only  at  the  moment  of  birth — he  must  get  from  his 
existence  the  impression  that  he  is  in  fact  omnipo- 
tent. For  what  is  omnipotence?  The  feeling  that 
one  has  all  that  one  wants,  and  that  one  has  noth- 
ing left  to  wish  for.  The  foetus,  however,  could 
maintain  this  of  itself,  for  it  always  has  what  is 
.necessary  for  the  satisfaction  of  its  instincts,9  and 
so  has  nothing  to  wish  for;  it  is  without  wants. 

The  childhood  megalomania  of  their  own  omnipo- 
tence is  thus  at  least  no  empty  delusion;  the  child 
and  the  obsessional  patient  demand  nothing  impos- 
sible from  reality  when  they  are  not  to  be  dissuaded 
from  holding  that  their  wishes  must  be  fulfilled ;  they 
are  only  demanding  the  return  of  a  state  that  once 
existed,  those  "good  old  days"  in  which  they  were 
all-powerful  {Period  of  unconditional  omnipotence). 

With  the  same  right  by  which  we  assume  the 
transference  of  memory  traces  of  the  race's  history 

'  As  a  result  of  disturbances,  such  as  through  illness  or  in- 
jury of  the  mother  or  of  the  umbilical  cord,  etc.,  necessity  can 
face  a  human  being  already  in  the  mother's  body,  can  rob  him 
of  his  omnipotence  and  compel  him  to  the  effort  of  "changing 
the  outer  world,"  i.  e.  of  performing  work  (an  example  being 
the  inspiration  of  amniotic  fluid  when  in  danger  of  suffoca- 
tion.) 


220  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

on  to  the  individual,  indeed  with  more  justification 
than  this,  we  may  assert  that  the  traces  of  intra- 
uterine  psychical  processes  do  not  remain  without  in- 
fluence on  the  shaping  of  the  psychical  material  pro- 
duced after  birth.  The  behaviour  of  the  child  im- 
mediately after  birth  speaks  for  this  continuity  of 
the  mental  processes.10 

The  new-born  child  does  not  accommodate  himself 
uniformly  as  regards  all  his  needs  to  the  new  situa- 
tion which  is  visibly  disagreeable  to  him.  Imme- 
diately after  the  delivery  he  begins  to  breathe,  so 
as  to  restore  the  provision  of  oxygen  that  has  been 
interrupted  by  the  tying  of  the  umbilical  vessels ;  the 
possession  of  a  respiratory  mechanism,  formed  al- 
ready in  intra-uterine  life,  at  once  enables  him  ac- 
tively to  remedy  the  oxygen  privation.  If,  however, 
one  observes  the  remaining  behaviour  of  the  new- 
born child  one  gets  the  impression  that  he  is  far 
from  pleased  at  the  rude  disturbance  of  the  wish-less 
tranquillity  he  had  enjoyed  in  the  womb,  and  indeed 
that  he  longs  to  rega'm  this  situation.  Nurses  in- 
stinctively recognise  this  wish  of  the  child,  and  as 
soon  as  lie  has  given  vent  to  his  discomfort  by  strug- 
gling and  crying  they  deliberately  bring  him  into  a 
situation  that  resembles  as  closely  as  possible  the 
one  he  has  just  left.  They  lay  him  down  by  the 

10  Freud  has  incidentally  pointed  out  that  the  sensations  of 
the  child  during  the  birth  act  probably  evoke  the  first  anx- 
iety affect  of  the  new  being,  which  remains  prefigurative  for 
all  later  anxiety  and  anxiousness. 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality 

warm  body  of  the  mother,  or  wrap  him  up  in  soft, 
warm  coverings,  evidently  so  as  to  give  him  the  il- 
lusion of  the  mother's  warm  protection.  They  guard 
his  eye  from  light  stimuli,  and  his  ear  from  noise,  and 
give  him  the  possibility  of  further  enjoying  the  in-« 
tra-uterine  absence  of  irritation,  or,  by  rocking  the 
child  and  crooning  to  him  monotonously  rythmi- 
cal  lullabies,  they  reproduce  the  slight  and  monoto- 
nously rhythmical  stimuli  that  the  child  is  not  spared 
even  in  utero  (the  swaying  movements  of  the  mother 
when  walking,  the  maternal  heart-beats,  the  deadened 
noise  from  without  that  manages  to  penetrate  to  the 
interior  of  the  body). 

If  we  try,  not  only  to  feel  ourselves  into  the  soul 
of  the  new-born  babe  (as  the  nurses  do),  but  also 
to  think  ourselves  into  it,  we  must  say  that  the 
helpless  crying  and  struggling  of  the  child  is  ap- 
parently a  very  unsuitable  reaction  to  the  unpleas- 
ant disturbance  that  the  previous  situation  of  being 
satisfied  has  suddenty  experienced  as  a  result  of 
the  birth.  We  may  assume,  supported  by  considera- 
tions which  Freud  has  expounded  in  the  general  part 
of  his  Traumdeutung,11  that  the  first  consequence  of 
this  disturbance  is  the  hallucinatory  re-occupation  of 
the  satisfying  situation  that  is  missed,  the  untroubled 
existence  in  the  warm,  tranquil  body  of  the  mother. 
The  first  wish-impulse  of  the  child,  therefore,  cannot 
be  any  other  than  to  regain  this  situation.  Now  the 
"Freud.  Die  Traumdeutung.  3e  Aufl.,  S.  376. 


222          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

curious  thing  is  that — pre-supposing  normal  care — 
this  hallucination  is  in  fact  realised.  From  the  sub- 
jective standpoint  of  the  child  the  previously  un- 
conditional "omnipotence"  has  changed  merely  in 
so  far,  that  he  needs  only  to  seize  the  wish-aims  in 
a  hallucinatory  way  (to  imagine  them)  and  to  alter 
nothing  else  in  the  outer  world,  in  order  (after  sat- 
isfying this  single  condition)  really  to  attain  the 
wish-fulfilment.  Since  the  child  certainly  has  no 
knowledge  of  the  real  concatenation  of  cause  and 
effect,  or  of  the  nurse's  existence  and  activity,  he 
must  feel  himself  in  the  possession  of  a  magical  ca- 
pacity that  can  actually  realise  all  his  wishes  by 
simply  imagining  the  satisfaction  of  them.  (Period 
of  magical-hallucinatory  omnipotence.) 

That  the  nurse  guesses  the  hallucinations  of  the 
child  aright  is  shewn  by  the  effect  of  her  actions.  As 
soon  as  the  first  nursing  measures  are  carried  out 
the  child  calms  itself  and  goes  to  sleep.  The  first 
sleep,  however,  is  nothing  else  than  the  successful  re- 
production of  the  womb  situation  {which  shelters  as 
far  as  possible  from  external  stimuli),  probably  with 
the  biological  function  that  the  processes  of  growth 
and  regeneration  can  concentrate  all  energy  on 
themselves,  undisturbed  by  the  performance  of  any 
external  work.  Some  considerations,  which  cannot 
be  presented  in  this  connection,  have  convinced  me 
that  also  every  later  sleep  is  nothing  else  than  a 
periodically  repeated  regression  to  the  stage  of  the 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality 

magical-hallucinatory  omnipotence,  and  through  the 
help  of  this  to  the  absolute  omnipotence  of  the  womb 
situation.  According  to  Freud,  one  has  to  postulate 
for  each  system  subsisting  by  the  pleasure-principle 
arrangements  by  means  of  which  it  can  withdraw 
itself  from  the  stimuli  of  reality.12  Now  it  seems 
to  me  that  sleep  and  dreams  are  functions  of  such 
arrangements,  that  is  to  say,  remains  of  the  hal- 
lucinatory omnipotence  of  the  small  child  that  sur- 
vive into  adult  life.  The  pathological  counter-part 
of  this  regression  is  the  hallucinatory  wish-fulfil- 
ment in  the  psychoses. 

Since  the  wish  for  the  satisfying  of  instincts  mani- 
fests itself  periodically,  while  the  outer  world  pays 
no  attention  to  the  occurrence  of  the  occasion  on 
which  the  instinct  is  exerted,  the  hallucinatory  rep- 
resentation of  the  wish-fulfilment  soon  proves  inade- 
quate to  bring  about  any  longer  a  real  wish-fulfil- 
ment. A  new  condition  is  added  to  the  fulfilment :  the 
child  has  to  give  certain  signals — thus  performing  a 
motor  exertion,  although  an  inadequate  one — so  that 
the  situation  may  be  changed  in  the  direction  of  his 
disposition,  and  the  "ideational  identity"  be  followed 
by  the  satisfying  "perceptual  identity."  13 

The  hallucinatory  stage  was  already  characterised 
by  the  occurrence  of  uncoordinated  motor  discharges 
(crying,  struggling)  on  the  occasion  of  disagreeable 

u  Freud.  Jahrb.,  Bd.  Ill,  S.  3. 

11  Freud.     Die  Traumdeutung.  Loc.  cit. 


224          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

affects.  These  are  now  made  use  of  by  the  child  as 
magic  signals,  at  the  dictation  of  which  the  satis- 
faction promptly  arrives  (naturally  with  external 
help,  of  which  the  child,  however,  has  no  idea).  The 
subjective  feeling  of  the  child  at  all  this  may  be 
compared  to  that  of  a  real  magician,  who  has  only 
to  perform  a  given  gesture  to  bring  about  in  the 
outer  world  according  to  his  will  the  most  compli- 
cated occurrences.14 

We  note  how  the  omnipotence  of  human  beings 
gets  to  depend  on  more  and  more  "conditions"  with 
the  increase  in  the  complexity  of  the  wishes.  These 
efferent  manifestations  soon  become  insufficient  to 
bring  about  the  situation  of  satisfaction.  As  the 
wishes  take  more  and  more  special  forms  with  de- 

14  When  I  search  in  pathology  for  an  analogy  to  these  dis- 
charges I  have  always  to  think  of  genuine  epilepsy,  that  most 
problematical  of  the  major  neuroses.  And  although  I  fully  ad- 
mit that  in  the  question  of  epilepsy  the  physiological  is  difficult 
to  separate  from  the  psychological,  I  may  call  attention  to  the 
fact  that  epileptics  are  known  to  be  uncommonly  "sensitive" 
beings,  behind  whose  submissiveness  frightful  rage  and  do- 
mineeringness  can  appear  on  the  least  occasion.  This  char- 
acteristic has  up  to  the  present  usually  been  interpreted  as  a 
secondary  degeneration,  as  the  consequence  of  repeated  at- 
tacks. One  should,  however,  think  of  another  possibility, 
namely  whether  the  epileptic  attacks  are  not  to  be  considered 
as  regressions  to  the  infantile  period  of  wish-fulfilment  by 
means  of  uncoordinated  movements.  Epileptics  would  then  be 
persons  with  whom  the  disagreeable  affects  get  heaped  up  and 
are  periodically  abreacted  in  paroxysms.  If  this  explanation 
proves  to  be  useful  we  should  have  to  localise  the  place  of  fix- 
ation for  a  later  affliction  of  epilepsy  in  this  stage  of  unco- 
ordinated wish-manifestations. — The  irrational  stamping  of  the 
feet,  clenching  of  the  fists,  and  grinding  of  the  teeth,  etc.,  that 
are  to  be  seen  in  outbursts  of  anger  would  be  a  milder  form 
of  the  same  regression  in  otherwise  healthy  persons. 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality 

velopment,  they  demand  increasingly  specialised  sig- 
nals. To  begin  with  are  such  as,  imitations  of  the 
movement  of  sucking  with  the  mouth  when  the  infant 
wants  to  be  fed,  and  the  characteristic  expressions 
by  means  of  the  voice  and  abdominal  pressing  when 
it  wants  to  be  cleansed  after  excreting.  The  child 
gradually  learns  also  to  stretch  out  its  hand  for  the 
objects  that  it  wants.  From  this  is  developed  later 
a  regular  gesture-language :  by  suitable  combinations 
of  gestures  the  child  is  able  to  express  quite  special 
needs,  which  then  are  very  often  actually  satisfied, 
so  that — if  only  it  keeps  to  the  condition  of  the 
expression  of  wishes  by  means  of  corresponding  ges- 
ture— the  child  can  still  appear  to  itself  as  omnip- 
otent: Period  of  omnipotence  by  the  help  of  magic 
gestures. 

This  period  also  has  a  representative  in  pathol- 
ogy; the  curious  jump  from  the  world  of  thought 
into  that  of  bodily  processes,  which  Freud  has  dis- 
covered hysterical  conversion  to  be,15  becomes  more 
intelligible  to  us  when  we  view  it  as  a  regression  to 
the  stage  of  gesture-magic.  Psycho-analysis  shews 
us  in  fact  that  hysterical  attacks  present  with  the 
help  of  gestures  the  repressed  wishes  of  the  patient  as 
fulfilled.  In  the  mental  life  of  the  normal  the  count- 
less number  of  superstitious  gestures,  or  such  as  are 
in  some  other  way  considered  efficacious  (gestures 
of  cursing,  blessing,  praying),  is  a  remainder  of  that 

"  See  Freud's  works  in  the  Studien  iiher  Hysteric,  1895. 


226          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

developmental  period  of  the  sense  of  reality  in  which 
one  still  felt  mighty  enough  to  be  able  to  violate  the 
regular  order 16  of  the  universe.  Fortune-tellers, 
soothsayers,  and  the  magnetisers  continually  find 
belief  in  the  assertion  of  such  complete  power  of  their 
gestures,  and  the  Neapolitan  also  averts  the  evil  eye 
with  a  symbolic  gesture. 

With  the  increase  in  the  extent  and  complexity  of 
the  wants  goes  naturally  an  increase,  not  only  of 
the  "conditions"  that  the  individual  has  to  submit  to 
if  he  wishes  to  see  his  wants  satisfied,  but  also  of 
the  number  of  cases  in  which  his  ever  more  audacious 
wishes  remain  unfulfilled  even  when  the  once  effica- 
cious conditions  are  strictly  observed.  The  out- 
stretched hand  must  often  be  drawn  back  empty,  the 
longed-for  object  does  not  follow  the  magic  gesture. 
Indeed,  an  invincible  hostile  power  may  forcibly  op- 
pose itself  to  this  gesture  and  compel  the  hand  to 
resume  its  former  position.  Till  now  the  "all-pow- 
erful" being  has  been  able  to  feel  himself  one  with  the 
world  that  obeyed  him  and  followed  his  every  nod, 
but  gradually  there  appears  a  painful  discordance 
in  his  experiences.  He  has  to  distinguish  between 
certain  perfidious  things,  which  do  not  obey  his  will, 
as  an  outer  world,  and  on  the  other  side  his  ego ;  i.  e. 
between  the  subjective  psychical  contents  (feelings) 
and  the  objectified  ones  (sensations).  I  once  called 
the  first  of  these  stages  the  Introjection  Phase  of  the 

16  This  being  of  course  quite  unsuspected. 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality    227 

pysche,  since  in  it  all  experiences  are  still  incorpo- 
rated into  the  ego,  and  the  later  one  the  Projection 
Phase.11  One  might  also,  following  this  terminol- 
ogy, speak  of  the  omnipotence  stage  as  the  introjec- 
tion  stage,  the  reality  stage  as  the  projection  stage, 
of  the  development  of  the  ego. 

Still  even  the  objectifying  of  the  outer  world  does 
not  at  once  destroy  every  tie  between  the  ego  and  the 
non-ego.  The  child  learns,  it  is  true,  to  be  content 
with  having  only  a  part  of  the  world,  the  ego,  at 
his  disposal,  the  outer  world,  however,  often  opposing 
his  wishes,  but  there  still  remains  in  this  outer 
world  qualities  that  he  has  learned  to  know  in  him- 
self, i.  e.  ego  qualities.  Everything  points  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  child  passes  through  an  animistic 
period  in  the  apprehension  of  reality,  in  which  every 
object  appears  to  him  to  be  endowed  with  life,  and 
in  which  he  seeks  to  find  again  in  every  object  his 
own  organs  and  their  activities.18 

The  derisive  remark  was  once  made  against  psy- 
cho-analysis that,  according  to  this  doctrine,  the 
unconscious  sees  a  penis  in  every  convex  object  and 
a  vagina  or  anus  in  every  concave  one.  I  find  that 
this  sentence  well  characterises  the  facts.  The 
child's  mind  (and  the  tendency  of  the  unconscious 
in  adults  that  survives  from  it)  is  at  first  concerned 
exclusively  with  his  own  body,  and  later  on  chiefly 

17  Ch.  II. 

"On   the   subject   of    animism    see    also   the   essay   "Ueber 
Naturgefuhl"  by  Dr.  Hanns  Sachs  (Imago,  Jahrg.  I.). 


228          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

with  the  satisfying  of  his  instincts,  with  the  pleas- 
urable satisfactions  that  sucking,  eating,  contact 
with  the  genital  regions,  and  the  functions  of  excre- 
tion procure  for  him ;  what  wonder,  then,  if  also  his 
attention  is  arrested  above  all  by  those  objects  and 
processes  of  the  outer  world  that  on  the  ground  of 
ever  so  distant  a  resemblance  remind  him  of  his  dear- 
est experiences. 

Thus  arise  those  intimate  connections,  which  re- 
main throughout  life,  between  the  human  body  and 
the  objective  world  that  we  call  symbolic.  On  the 
one  hand  the  child  in  this  stage  sees  in  the  world 
nothing  but  images  of  his  corporeality,  on  the  other 
he  learns  to  represent  by  means  of  his  body  the 
whole  multif  ariousness  of  the  outer  world.  This  ca- 
pacity for  symbolic  representation  is  an  important' 
completion  of  the  gesture-language;  it  enables  the 
child  not  only  to  signalise  such  wishes  as  immediately 
concern  his  body,  but  also  to  express  wishes  that  re- 
late to  the  changing  of  the  outer  world,  now  recog- 
nised as  such.  If  the  child  is  surrounded  by  loving 
care,  he  need  not  even  in  this  stage  of  his  existence 
give  up  the  illusion  of  his  omnipotence.  He  still 
only  needs  to  represent  an  object  symbolically  and 
the  thing,  believed  to  be  alive,  often  really  "comes" 
to  him ;  for  the  animistically  thinking  child  must  have 
this  impression  at  the  satisfaction  of  his  wishes. 
From  the  uncertainty  regarding  the  arrival  of  the 
satisfaction  it  gradually  dawns  on  him,  to  be  sure, 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality    229 

that  there  are  also  higher,  "divine"  powers  (mother 
or  nurse),  whose  favour  he  must  possess  if  the  sat- 
isfaction is  to  follow  closely  on  the  magic  gestures. 
Still  this  satisfaction  also  is  not  hard  to  obtain,  es- 
pecially with  indulgent  surroundings. 

One  of  the  bodily  means  that  the  child  makes  use 
of  for  representing  his  wishes,  and  the  objects  he 
wishes  for,  attains  then  an  especial  significance,  one 
that  ranges  beyond  that  of  all  other  means  of  rep- 
resentation— speech,  namely.  Speech  is  originally  19 
imitation,  i.  e.  vocal  representation,  of  sounds  and 
noises  that  are  produced  by  things,  or  which  can 
be  produced  by  their  help ;  the  executive  capacity  of 
the  speech  organs  allows  the  reproduction  of  a  much 
greater  multiplicity  of  objects  and  processes  of  the 
outer  world  than  was  possible  with  the  help  of  ges- 
ture-language, and  in  a  much  simpler  manner. 
Speech  symbolism  thus  gets  substituted  for  gesture 
symbolism :  certain  series  of  sounds  are  brought  into 
close  associative  connection  with  definite  objects  and 
processes,  and  indeed  gradually  identified  with  these. 
From  this  accrues  the  great  progress :  there  is  no 
longer  a  necessity  for  the  cumbrous  figurative  imagi- 
nation and  the  still  more  cumbrous  dramatic  repre- 
sentation ;  the  imagination  and  representation  of  the 
series  of  sounds  that  we  call  words  allow  a  far  more 
specialised  and  economic  conception  and  expression 

18  See  Kleinpaul,  Leben  der  Sprache  (1893),  and  Sperber, 
"Uber  den  Einfluss  sexueller  Momente  auf  Entstehung  und 
Entwicklung  der  Sprache,"  Imago,  1912. 


230          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

of  the  wishes.  At  the  same  time  conscious  thinking 
makes  speech  symbolism  possible  by  becoming  asso- 
ciated to  thought  processes  that  are  in  themselves 
unconscious,  and  lending  them  perceptual  qualities.20 

Now  conscious  thought  by  means  of  speech  signs 
is  the  highest  accomplishment  of  the  psychical  ap- 
paratus, and  alone  makes  adjustment  to  reality  pos- 
sible by  retarding  the  reflex  motor  discharge  and  the 
release  from  unpleasantness.  In  spite  of  this  the 
child  knows  how  to  preserve  his  feeling  of  omnipo- 
tence even  in  this  stage  of  his  development,  for  his 
wishes  that  can  be  set  forth  in  thoughts  are  still  so 
few  and  comparatively  uncomplicated  that  the  at- 
tentive entourage  concerned  with  the  child's  welfare 
easily  manages  to  guess  most  of  these  thoughts.  The 
mimic  expressions  that  continually  accompany 
thinking  (peculiarly  so  with  children)  make  this  kind 
of  thought-reading  especially  easy  for  the  adults; 
and  when  the  child  actually  formulates  his  wishes 
in  words  the  entourage,  ever  ready  to  help,  hastens 
to  fulfil  them  as  soon  as  possible.  The  child  then 
thinks  himself  in  possession  of  magic  capacities,  is 
thus  in  the  period  of  magic  thoughts  and  magic 
words .21 

It  is  this  stage  of  reality  development  to  which 

20  See  Freud,  Traumdeutung,  III  Aufl.,  S.  401  and  Jahrb., 
Bd.  Ill,  S.  I. 

11  The  psychological  explanation  of  "magic"  naturally  does 
not  exclude  the  possibility  of  this  belief  containing  also  the 
foreshadowing  of  physical  facts  (telepathy,  etc.). 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality    281 

the  obsessional  patients  seem  to  regress  when  they 
are  not  to  be  dissuaded  from  the  feeling  of  the  omnip- 
otence of  their  thoughts  and  verbal  formulas,  and 
when,  as  Freud  has  shewn,  they  set  thinking  in  the 
place  of  acting.  In  superstition,  in  magic,  and  in 
religious  cults  this  belief  in  the  irresistible  power  of 
certain  prayer,  cursing,  or  magical  formulas,  which 
one  has  only  to  think  inwardly  or  only  to  speak 
aloud  for  them  to  work,  plays  an  enormous  part.22 

This  almost  incurable  megalomania  of  mankind  is 
only  apparently  contravened  by  these  neurotics  with 
whom  behind  the  feverish  search  for  success  one  at 
once  comes  across  a  feeling  of  inferiority  (Adler), 
which  is  well  known  to  the  patients  themselves.  An 
analysis  that  reaches  to  the  depths  reveals  in  all  such 
cases  that  these  feelings  of  inferiority  are  in  no  sense 
something  final,  an  explanation  of  the  neurosis,  but 
are  themselves  the  reactions  to  an  exaggerated  feel- 
ing of  omnipotence,  to  which  such  patients  have  be- 
come "fixed"  in  their  early  childhood,  and  which  has 
made  it  impossible  for  them  to  adjust  themselves  to 
any  subsequent  renunciation.  The  manifest  seeking 
for  greatness  that  these  people  have,  however,  is 
only  a  "return  of  the  repressed,"  a  hopeless  attempt 
to  reach  once  more,  by  means  of  changing  the  outer 
world,  the  omnipotence  that  originally  was  enjoyed 
without  effort. 

"This  "omnipotence"  ("Motor  power")  is  highly  characteris- 
tic also  of  obscene  words.    See  Chapter  IV. 


282          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analyst* 

We  can  only  repeat :  All  children  live  in  the  happy 
delusion  of  omnipotence,  which  at  some  time  or 
other — even  if  only  in  the  womb — they  really  par- 
took of.  It  depends  on  their  "Daimon"  and  their 
"Tyche"  whether  they  preserve  the  feelings  of  omnip- 
otence also  for  later  life,  and  become  Optimists,  or 
whether  they  go  to  augment  the  number  of  Pessi- 
mists, who  never  get  reconciled  to  the  renunciation 
of  their  unconscious  irrational  wishes,  who  on  the 
slightest  provocation  feel  themselves  insulted  or 
slighted,  and  who  regard  themselves  as  step-children 
of  fate — because  they  cannot  remain  her  only  or 
favourite  children. 

Freud  dates  the  end  of  the  domination  of  the  pleas- 
ure-principle only  from  the  complete  psychical  de- 
tachment from  the  parents.  It  is  also  at  this  epoch, 
which  is  extremely  variable  in  individual  cases,  that 
the  feeling  of  omnipotence  gives  way  to  the  full  ap- 
preciation of  the  force  of  circumstances.  The  sense 
of  reality  attains  its  zenith  in  Science,  while  the  il- 
lusion of  omnipotence  here  experiences  its  greatest 
humiliation:  the  previous  omnipotence  here  dissolves 
into  mere  "conditions."  (Conditionalism,  determin- 
ism.) Nevertheless,  we  possess  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
freedom  of  the  will  an  optimistic  philosophical  dogma 
that  can  still  realise  phantasies  of  omnipotence. 

The  recognition  that  our  wishes  and  thoughts  are 
conditioned  signifies  the  maximum  of  normal  projec- 
tion, ».  e.  objectification.  There  is  also,  however,  a 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality    233 

psychical  disorder,  paranoia,  which  has  the  charac- 
teristic, among  others,  that  in  it  even  the  person's 
own  wishes  and  thoughts  are  expelled  into  the  outer 
world,  are  projected.23  It  seems  natural  to  locate 
the  fixation  point  of  this  psychosis  in  the  period  of 
the  final  renunciation  of  omnipotence,  i.  e.  in  the 
projection  phase  of  the  sense  of  reality. 

The  stages  in  the  development  of  the  sense  of 
reality  have  here  been  presented  up  to  now  only  in 
terms  of  the  egoistic,  so-called  "ego-instincts,"  which 
serve  the  function  of  self-preservation;  reality  has, 
as  Freud  has  established,  closer  connections  with  the 
.  ego  than  with  sexuality,  on  the  one  hand  because  the 
latter  is  less  dependent  on  the  outer  world  (it  can 
for  a  long  time  satisfy  itself  auto-erotically),  on  the 
other  hand  because  it  is  suppressed  during  the  la- 
tency period  and  does  not  come  at  all  into  contact 
with  reality.  Sexuality  thus  remains  throughout 
life  more  subjected  to  the  pleasure-principle,  whereas 
the  ego  has  immediately  to  experience  the  bitterest 
disappointment  after  every  disregarding  of  reality.2* 
If  we  now  consider  the  feeling  of  omnipotence  in  sex- 
ual development  that  characterises  the  pleasure 
stage,  we  have  to  observe  that  here  the  "period  of 
unconditional  omnipotence"  lasts  until  the  giving  up 

"See  Freud,  "Die  Abwehr-Neuropsychosen"  (Kl.  Schr.  z. 
Neurosenlehre,  S.  45),  "Psychoanalytische  Bemerkungen  tiber 
einen  autobiographisch  beschriebenen  Fall  von  Paranoia," 
Jahrb.,  Bd.  Ill,  and  Chapter  V  of  this  book. 

"Freud.    Jahrb.,  Bd.  Ill,  S.  5. 


234          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

of  the  auto-erotic  kinds  of  satisfaction,  a  time  when 
the  ego  has  already  long  adjusted  itself  to  the  in- 
creasingly complicated  conditions  of  reality,  has 
passed  through  the  stages  of  magic  gestures  and 
words,  and  has  already  almost  attained  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  omnipotence  of  natural  forces.  Auto- 
erotism  and  narcissism  are  thus  the  omnipotence 
stages  of  erotism,  and,  since  narcissism  never  comes 
to  an  end  at  all,  but  always  remains  by  the  side  of 
object-erotism,  it  can  thus  be  said  that — in  so  far 
as  we  confine  ourselves  to  self-love — in  the  matter  of 
love  we  can  retain  the  illusion  of  omnipotence 
throughout  life.  That  the  way  to  narcissism  is  at 
the  same  time  the  constantly  accessible  way  of  re- 
gression after  every  disappointment  in  an  object  of 
love  is  too  well  known  to  need  proof;  auto-erotic — 
narcissistic  regressions  of  pathological  strength  may 
be  suspected  behind  the  symptoms  of  Paraphrenia 
(Dementia  praecox)  and  Hysteria,  whereas  the  fix- 
ation-points of  the  Obsessional  Neurosis  and  of  Par- 
anoia should  be  found  in  the  line  of  development  of 
"erotic  reality"  (the  compulsion  to  find  an  object). 
These  relations,  however,  have  not  yet  been  ap- 
propriately studied  with  all  the  neuroses,  so  that  we 
have  to  be  content  with  Freud's  general  formulation 
concerning  the  choice  of  neurosis,  namely,  that  the 
variety  of  the  subsequent  disorder  is  decided  by 
"which  phase  in  the  development  of  the  ego  and  the 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality    235 

sexual  hunger  is  affected  by  the  determining  inhibi- 
tion of  development." 

One  may  nevertheless  venture  to  add  to  this  sen- 
tence a  second  one ;  we  suspect  that  the  wish-con- 
stituent of  the  neurosis,  ».  e.  the  varieties  and  aims  of 
the  erotism  that  the  symptoms  present  as  fulfilled, 
depends  on  where  the  fixation-point  is  in  the  phase 
of  the  development  of  the  sexual  hunger,  while  the 
mechanism  of  the  neuroses  is  probably  decided  by 
what  stage  in  the  development  of  the  ego  the  indi- 
vidual is  in  at  the  time  of  the  determining  inhibition. 
It  is  very  well  thinkable  that  with  the  regression  of 
the  sexual  hunger  to  earlier  stages  of  development 
the  level  of  the  reality-sense  that  was  dominant  at 
the  time  of  fixation  also  becomes  renascent  in  the 
mechanisms  of  the  symptom-formation.  Since,  that 
is  to  say,  this  earlier  kind  of  "reality-testing"  is  in- 
comprehensible to  the  present  ego  of  the  neurotic, 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  its  being  placed  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  repression,  and  used  for  the  presentation 
of  censured  feeling-  and  thought-complexes.  Hysteria 
and  the  obsessional  neurosis,  for  example,  would  ac- 
cording to  this  conception  be  characterised  on  the  one 
hand  by  a  regression  of  the  sexual  hunger  to  earlier 
stages  of  development  (auto-erotism,  Oedipusism), 
and  on  the  other  hand  in  their  mechanisms  by  a  re- 
lapse of  the  reality-sense  to  the  stage  of  magic  ges- 
tures (conversion)  or  of  magic  thoughts  (omnipo- 


236          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

tence  of  thought).  I  repeat:  It  will  need  much 
longer  laborious  work  before  the  fixation-points  of 
all  neuroses  can  be  established  with  certainty.  I 
wish  here  only  to  point  to  one  possibility  of  a  so- 
lution, one,  it  is  true,  that  to  me  is  plausible. 

What  we  may  conceive  about  the  phylogenesis  of 
the  reality-sense  can  at  present  be  offered  only  as 
a  scientific  prediction.  It  is  to  be  assumed  that  we 
shall  some  day  succeed  in  bringing  the  individual 
stages  in  the  development  of  the  ego,  and  the  neu- 
rotic regression-types  of  these,  into  a  parallel  with 
the  stages  in  the  racial  history  of  mankind,  just 
as,  for  instance,  Freud  found  again  in  the  mental 
life  of  the  savage  the  characters  of  the  obsessional 
neurosis.25 

In  general  the  development  of  the  reality-sense  is 
represented  by  a  succession  of  repressions,  to  which 
mankind  was  compelled,  not  through  spontaneous 
"strivings  towards  development,"  but  through  neces- 
sity, through  adjustment  to  a  demanded  renuncia- 
tion. The  first  great  repression  is  made  necessary, 
by  the  process  of  birth,  which  certainly  comes  about 
without  active  cooperation,  without  any  "intention" 
on  the  part  of  the  child.  The  foetus  would  much 
rather  remain  undisturbed  longer  in  the  womb,  but 
it  is  cruelly  turned  out  into  the  world,  and  it  has  to 
forget  (repress)  the  kinds  of  satisfaction  it  had  got 

*•  Freud.     "Ueber  einige  Uebereinstimmungen  im  Seelenleben 
der  Wilden  und  der  Neurotiker,"  Imago,  Jahrg  I,  1912. 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality    237 

fond  of,  and  adjust  itself  to  new  ones.  The  same 
cruel  game  is  repeated  with  every  new  stage  of  de- 
velopment.26 

It  is  perhaps  allowable  to  venture  the  surmise  that 
it  was  the  geological  changes  in  the  surface  of  the 
earth,  with  their  catastrophic  consequences  for 
primitive  man,  that  compelled  repression  of  favour- 
ite habits  and  thus  "development."  Such  catastro- 
phes may  have  been  the  sites  of  repression  in  the 
history  of  racial  development,  and  the  temporal  lo- 
calisation and  intensity  of  such  catastrophes  may 
have  decided  the  character  and  the  neuroses  of  the 
race.  According  to  a  remark  of  Professor  Freud's, 
racial  character  is  the  precipitate  of  racial  history. 
Having  ventured  so  far  beyond  the  knowable,  we 
have  no  reason  to  shrink  before  the  last  analogy  and 
from  bringing  the  great  step  in  individual  repres- 
sion, the  latency  period,  into  connection  with  the  last 
and  greatest  catastrophe  that  smote  our  primitive 
ancestors  (at  a  time  when  there  were  certainly  hu- 
man beings  on  the  earth),  i.  e.  with  the  misery  of  the 
glacial  period,  which  we  still  faithfully  recapitulate 
in  our  individual  life.27 

18  If  this  thought  is  logically  pursued,  one  must  make  oneself 
familiar  with  the  idea  of  a  tendency  of  preservation,  or  re- 
gression-tendency, also  dominating  organic  life,  the  tendency  to 
further  development,  adaptation,  etc.,  depending  only  on  ex- 
ternal stimuli. 

17  Cases  where  development  precedes  the  real  needs  seem  to 
contradict  the  conception  that  only  external  compulsion,  and 
never  spontaneous  impulse,  leads  to  the  giving  up  of  accus- 
tomed mechanisms  (development).  An  example  for  this  would 


288          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

The  impetuous  curiosity  to  know  everything  that 
has  just  seduced  me  into  enchanted  vistas  of  the 
past,  and  led  me  to  bridge  over  the  yet  unknowable 
by  the  help  of  analogies,  brings  me  back  to  the 
starting-point  of  these  considerations:  to  the  theme 
of  the  acme  and  decline  of  the  feeling  of  omnipotence. 
Science  has  to  repudiate  this  illusion,  or  at  least  al- 
ways to  know  when  she  is  entering  the  field  of  hy- 
potheses and  fancies.  In  fairy-tales,  on  the  con- 
trary, phantasies  of  omnipotence  are  and  remain  the 
dominating  ones.28  Just  where  we  have  most  humbly 
to  bow  before  the  forces  of  Nature,  the  fairy-tale 
comes  to  our  aid  with  its  typical  motives.  In  reality 
we  are  weak,  hence  the  heroes  of  fairy-tales  are 
strong  and  unconquerable;  in  our  activities  and  our 
knowledge  we  are  cramped  and  hindered  by  time  and 
space,  hence  in  fairy-tales  one  is  immortal,  is  in  a 
hundred  places  at  the  same  time,  sees  into  the  future 
and  knows  the  past.  The  ponderousness,  the  solid- 
ity, and  the  impenetrability  of  matter  obstruct  our 
way  every  moment:  in  the  fairy-tale,  however,  man 
has  wings,  his  eyes  pierce  the  walls,  his  magic  wand 

be  the  development  of  the  respiratory  mechanism  already  in 
utero.  This  happens,  however,  only  in  ontogenesis,  and  is  here 
to  be  regarded  as  a  recapitulation  of  a  compulsory  process  of 
development  in  the  history  of  the  race.  The  playful  practising 
of  animals  (Gross)  also  are  not  the  preliminary  stages  of  a 
future  racial  function,  but  repetitions  of  phylogenetically  ac- 
quired capacities.  They  thus  allow  of  a  purely  historical-causal 
explanation,  and  we  are  not  compelled  to  regard  them  from  the 
point  of  view  of  finality. 

*  Cp.  Riklin,  Wunscherfullung  und  Symbolik  im  Marchen. 
(Schriften  zur  angewandten  Seelenkunde,  Heft  2.) 


Stages  in  the  Development  of  Sense  of  Reality    239 

opens  all  doors.  Reality  is  a  hard  fight  for  exist- 
ence; in  the  fairy-tale  the  words  "little  table,  be 
spread"  are  sufficient.  A  man  may  live  in  perpetual 
fear  of  attacks  from  dangerous  beasts  and  fierce 
foes;  in  the  fairy-tale  a  magic  cap  enables  every 
transformation  and  makes  us  inaccessible.  How 
hard  it  is  in  reality  to  attain  love  that  can  fulfil 
all  our  wishes !  In  the  fairy-tale  the  hero  is  irresist- 
ible, or  he  bewitches  with  a  magic  gesture. 

Thus  the  fairy-tale,  through  which  grown-ups  are 
so  fond  of  relating  to  their  children  their  own  un- 
fulfilled and  repressed  wishes,  really  brings  the  for- 
feited situation  of  omnipotence  to  a  last,  artistic 
presentation. 


CHAPTER  IX 

A   LITTLE  CHANTTCI,EER  1 

A  LADY  a  former  patient  of  mine  who  had  re- 
tained her  interest  in  psycho-analysis,  called 
my  attention  to  the  case  of  a  little  boy,  which  she 
surmised  would  be  of  general  interest. 

The  case  was  that  of  a  five-year-old  boy,  Arpad 
by  name,  who  according  to  the  unanimous  reports  of 
all  his  relatives  had  developed  up  to  the  age  of  three 
and  a  half  in  quite  a  regular  way  both  mentally  and 
physically,  and  was  said  to  have  been  a  perfectly  nor- 
mal child;  he  spoke  fluently  and  shewed  considerable 
intelligence. 

All  at  once  he  became  quite  different.  In  the  sum- 
mer of  1910  the  family  went  to  an  Austrian  spa, 
where  they  had  also  spent  the  previous  summer,  and 
took  rooms  in  the  same  house  as  in  the  year  before. 
Immediately  after  the  arrival  the  child's  demean- 
our changed  in  a  curious  way.  Hitherto  he  had 
taken  an  interest  in  all  the  goings  on,  both  indoors 
and  out  of  doors,  that  might  attract  the  attention  of 
a  child;  from  now  on  he  was  interested  in  only  one 

1  Published  in  the  Internal.  Zeitschr.  f.  arztl.  Psychoanalyse, 
1913. 

240 


A   Little  Chanticleer  241 

thing,  and  that  was  the  fowl-house  in  the  courtyard 
of  the  dwelling.  Early  in  the  morning  he  hastened 
to  the  poultry,  watched  them  with  tireless  interest, 
imitated  their  sounds  and  movements,  and  cried 
when  he  was  forcibly  removed  from  the  fowl-run.  But 
even  when  he  was  away  from  it  he  did  nothing  else 
but  crow  and  cackle.  He  did  this  unintermittingly 
for  hours  at  a  time,  and  answered  to  questions  only 
with  these  animal  cries,  so  that  his  mother  was  se- 
riously concerned  lest  her  child  would  lose  his  power 
of  speech. 

This  peculiar  behaviour  of  little  Arpad  lasted 
throughout  the  whole  duration  of  the  summer  stay. 
When  the  family  returned  to  Budapest  he  began  once 
more  to  speak  in  a  human  way,  but  his  talk  was  al- 
most exclusively  of  cocks,  hens,  and  chickens,  at  the 
most  with  geese  and  ducks  besides.  His  usual  game, 
repeated  endlessly  every  day,  was  as  follows:  He 
crumpled  up  newspaper  into  the  shape  of  cocks  and 
hens,  and  offered  them  for  sale;  then  he  would  take 
some  object  (generally  a  small  flat  brush),  call  it  a 
knife,  carry  his  "fowl"  to  the  sink  (where  the  cook 
really  used  to  kill  the  poultry,  and  cut  the  throat 
of  his  paper  hen.  He  shewed  how  the  fowl  bled,  and 
with  his  voice  and  gestures  gave  an  excellent  imi- 
tation of  its  death  agony.  Whenever  fowls  were  of- 
fered for  sale  in  the  courtyard  little  Arpad  got  rest- 
less, ran  in  and  out  of  the  door,  and  gave  no  peace 
until  his  mother  bought  some.  He  wanted  to  witness 


242          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

their  slaughter.  Of  live  cocks,  however,  he  was  not 
a  little  afraid. 

The  parents  asked  the  child  endless  times  why  he 
was  so  afraid  of  cocks,  and  Arpad  always  related  the 
same  story:  He  had  once  gone  out  to  the  hen-coop, 
had  micturated  into  it,  whereupon  a  fowl  or  capon 
with  yellow  feathers  (sometimes  he  said  with  brown) 
came  and  bit  his  penis,  and  Ilona,  the  servant,  had 
dressed  the  wound.  Then  they  cut  the  cock's  throat, 
so  that  he  died. 

Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  parents  remembered 
this  occurrence,  which  had  happened  in  the  first  sum- 
mer spent  in  the  spa,  when  Arpad  was  only  two  and  a 
half  years  old.  One  day  the  mother  had  heard  the 
little  one  shrieking  fearfully,  and  learnt  from  the 
servant  that  he  was  frightened  of  a  cock  which  had 
snapped  at  his  penis.  Since  Ilona  was  no  longer  in 
the  family's  service  it  could  not  be  ascertained 
whether  on  that  occasion  Arpad  had  really  been  hurt 
or  (as  the  mother's  memory  went)  had  merely  been 
bandaged  by  Ilona  to  calm  him. 

The  curious  part  of  the  matter  was  that  the  psychi- 
cal after-effect  of  this  experience  had  set  in  with  the 
child  after  a  latent  period  of  a  whole  year,  on  the 
second  visit  to  the  summer  residence,  without  any- 
thing having  happened  in  the  meanwhile  to  which 
the  relatives  could  ascribe  this  sudden  recurrence  of 
the  fear  of  fowls  and  the  interest  in  them.  I  did  not, 
however,  let  the  negative  nature  of  this  evidence  re- 


A   Little  Chanticleer  243 

strain  me  from  putting  a  question  to  the  child's  en- 
tourage, one  sufficiently  justified  by  psycho-analyti- 
cal experience,  namely,  whether  in  the  course  of  the 
latent  period  the  child  had  not  been  threatened — as 
so  often  happens — with  the  cutting  off  of  his  penis  on 
account  of  voluptuous  playing  with  his  genitals. 
The  answer,  given  unwillingly,  was  to  the  effect  that 
at  the  present  time,  it  was  true,  the  boy  was  fond  of 
playing  with  his  member,  for  which  he  often  got  pun- 
ished, that  it  was  also  "not  impossible"  that  some- 
one might  have  "jokingly"  threatened  to  cut  it  off, 
further  that  Arpad  had  had  this  bad  habit  "for  a 
long  time,"  but  whether  he  already  had  it  in  the  lat- 
ent year  was  no  longer  known. 

In  what  comes  presently  it  will  be  seen  that  in  fact 
Arpad  had  not  been  spared  this  threat  at  a  later 
date,  so  that  we  are  entitled  to  regard  the  assump- 
tion as  probable  that  it  was  the  threat  experienced 
in  between  which  had  so  greatly  excited  the  child  on 
re-visiting  the  scene  of  the  first  terrifying  expe- 
rience, in  which  the  well-being  of  his  member  had  sim- 
ilarly been  endangered.  A  second  possibility  is  of 
course  not  to  be  excluded,  namely,  that  the  first 
fright  already  had  been  exaggerated  by  a  still  earlier 
threat  of  castration,  and  that  the  excitement  on  re- 
visiting the  hen-coop  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  increase 
of  "sexual  hunger"  that  had  come  about  in  the  mean- 
time. Unfortunately  it  was  no  longer  possible  to 
reconstruct  these  time  relationships,  and  we  have  to 


244           Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

be  content  with  the  probability  of  the  casual  connec- 
tion. 

Personal  investigation  of  the  boy  yielded  nothing 
striking  or  abnormal.  Immediately  on  entering  my 
room  his  attention  was  attracted  by  a  small  bronze 
mountain  cock  among  the  numerous  other  objects 
lying  about ;  he  brought  it  to  me  and  asked  "will  you 
give  it  to  me?"  I  gave  him  some  paper  and  a  pencil 
and  he  immediately  drew  a  cock  (not  unskilfully). 
Then  I  got  him  to  tell  me  the  story  about  the  cock. 
But  he  was  already  bored  and  wanted  to  get  back  to 
his  toys.  Direct  psycho-analytic  investigation  was 
therefore  impossible,  and  I  had  to  confine  myself  to 
getting  the  lady  who  was  interested  in  the  case  and, 
being  a  neighbour  and  friend  of  the  family,  could 
watch  him  for  hours  at  a  time,  to  note  down  his  cu- 
rious remarks  and  gestures.  I  was  able  to  establish 
so  much  for  myself,  however,  that  Arpad  was  men- 
tally very  alert  and  also  not  untalented;  his  mental 
interest  and  his  talent  were,  it  is  true,  peculiarly  cen- 
tered round  the  feathered  folk  of  the  fowl-run.  He 
clucked  and  crowed  in  a  masterly  way.  Early  in 
the  morning  he  woke  the  family — a  true  Chanticleer 
— with  a  lusty  crow.  He  was  musical,  but  sang  only 
popular  songs  in  which  cock,  fowl,  or  the  like  came, 
being  especially  fond  of  the  song: 

"To  Debreczen  I  must  run, 
There  to  buy  a  turkey-cock." 


A  Little  Chanticleer  245 

then  the  songs:  "Chicken,  chicken,  come,  come, 
come,"  and 

"Under  the  window  are  two  chickens, 
Two  little  cocks  and  a  hen." 

He  could  draw,  as  was  remarked  above,  but  he  con- 
fined himself  exclusively  to  birds  with  a  large  beak, 
drawing  these  with  considerable  skill.  One  thus  sees 
the  directions  in  which  he  was  seeking  to  sublimate 
his  pathologically  strong  interest  in  these  creatures. 
The  parents  had  finally  to  put  up  with  his  hobbies, 
seeing  that  their  interdictions  did  no  good,  and 
bought  for  him  various  toy  birds  made  of  unbreak- 
able material  with  which  he  carried  out  all  sorts  of 
fanciful  games. 

Arpad  was  in  general  a  pleasant  little  fellow,  but 
very  defiant  whenever  he  was  reprimanded  or  beaten. 
He  hardly  ever  cried,  and  never  begged  for  forgive- 
ness. Apart  from  these  character  traits,  however, 
there  were  no  traces  of  true  neurotic  traits  to  be 
recognised.  He  was  easily  frightened,  dreamt  a 
great  deal  (of  fowls,  of  course)  and  often  slept 
badly  (Pavor  noctumus). 

Arpad's  curious  sayings  and  actions,  which  were 
noted  down  by  the  lady  observer,  mostly  display  an 
unusual  pleasure  in  phantasies  about  the  cruel  tor- 
turing of  poultry.  His  typical  game,  imitating  the 
slaughter  of  fowls,  I  have  already  mentioned ;  to  this 


246          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

should  be  added  that  even  in  his  bird  dreams  it  was 
mostly  "killed"  cocks  and  hens  that  he  saw.  I  will 
here  give  a  literal  translation  of  some  of  his  charac- 
teristic sayings  : 

"I  should  like  to  have  a  live  plucked  cock,"  he 
once  said  quite  spontaneously.  "He  must  have  no 
wings,  no  feathers,  and  no  tail,  only  a  comb,  and  he 
must  be  able  to  walk  like  that." 

He  was  playing  in  the  kitchen  with  a  fowl  that  had 
just  been  slaughtered  by  the  cook.  All  of  a  sudden 
he  went  into  the  next  room,  fetched  a  curling-tongs 
out  of  a  drawer,  and  cried:  "Now  I  will  stick  this 
dead  fowl's  blind  eyes."  The  slaughtering  of  poul- 
try was  quite  a  festival  for  him.  He  could  dance 
round  the  animals'  bodies  for  hours  at  a  time  in  a 
state  of  intense  excitement. 

Someone,  pointing  to  the  slaughtered  fowl,  asked 
him :  "Would  you  like  it  to  wake  again  ?"  "The  devil 
I  would;  I  would  knock  it  down  again  at  once  my- 
self." 

He  often  played  with  potatoes  or  carrots  (which 
he  said  were  fowls),  slicing  them  into  small  pieces 
with  a  knife.  He  could  hardly  be  restrained  from 
throwing  to  the  ground  a  vase  that  had  fowls  painted 
on  it. 

The  affects  displayed  in  regard  to  fowls,  however, 
were  by  no  means  simply  those  of  hate  and  cruelty, 
but  were  plainly  ambivalent.  Very  often  he  would 
kiss  and  stroke  the  slaughtered  animal,  or  he  would 


A  Little  Chanticleer  24*7 

"feed"  his  wooden  goose  with  maize,  as  he  had  seen 
the  cook  do;  in  doing  this  he  clucked  and  peeped 
continuously.  Once  he  threw  his  unbreakable  doll 
(a  fowl)  in  the  oven  because  he  could  not  tear  it, 
but  then  pulled  it  out  again  at  once,  cleansed  it  and 
caressed  it.  The  animal  figures  in  his  picture  book, 
however,  had  a  worse  time  of  it;  he  tore  them  in 
pieces,  was  then  naturally  unable  to  bring  them  back 
to  life,  and  got  very  upset. 

If  such  symptoms  were  observed  in  an  adult  in- 
sane patient,  the  psycho-analyst  would  not  hesitate 
to  interpret  the  excessive  love  and  hate  concerning 
poultry  as  a  transference  of  unconscious  affects  that 
really  referred  to  human  beings,  probably  near  rel- 
atives, but  which  were  repressed  and  could  only  mani- 
fest themselves  in  this  displaced,  distorted  way.  He 
would  further  interpret  the  desire  to  pluck  and  blind 
the  animals  as  symbolising  castration  intentions,  and 
regard  the  whole  syndrome  as  a  reaction  to  the  pa- 
tient's fear  of  the  idea  of  his  own  castration.  The 
ambivalent  attitude  would  then  arouse  in  the  ana- 
lyst the  suspicion  that  mutually  contradictory  feel- 
ings in  the  patient's  mind  were  balancing  each  other, 
and  on  the  basis  of  numerous  experiential  facts  he 
would  have  to  surmise  that  this  ambivalence  prob- 
ably referred  to  the  father,  who — although  other- 
wise honoured  and  loved — had  at  the  same  time  to 
be  also  hated  on  account  of  the  sexual  restrictions 
sternly  imposed  by  him.  In  a  word,  the  analytic  in- 


248          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

terpretation  would  run:  The  cock  signified  in  the 
syndrome  the  father.2 

In  little  Arpad's  case  we  can  spare  ourselves  the 
trouble  of  making  any  interpretation.  The  work  of 
repression  was  not  yet  able  entirely  to  conceal  the 
significance  of  his  peculiarities;  the  original  thing, 
the  repressed  tendencies,  could  still  be  discerned  in 
his  talk,  and  indeed  it  became  evident  at  times  with 
a  startling  openness  and  crudity. 

His  cruelty  was  often  displayed  in  regard  to  hu- 
man beings  also,  and  was  strikingly  often  directed 
against  the  genital  region  of  adults.  "I'll  give  you 
one  in  the  faeces,  in  your  behind,"  he  was  fond  of  say- 
ing to  a  boy  somewhat  older  than  himself.  Once  he 
said,  still  more  plainly,  "I'll  cut  your  middle  out." 
The  idea  of  blinding  occupied  him  pretty  often.  He 
once  asked  his  neighbour:  "Can  one  make  a  person 
blind  with  fire  or  with  water?"  (He  was  also  highly 
interested  in  the  genitals  of  poultry.  With  every 
fowl  that  was  slaughtered  they  had  to  enlighten  him 
about  the  sex — whether  it  was  a  cock,  a  hen,  or  a 
capon.) 

He  ran  to  the  bed  of  a  grown-up  girl  and  called 
out:  "I'll  cut  your  head  off,  lay  it  on  your  belly, 

1  In  a  very  large  number  of  analyses  of  dreams  and  neuroses 
the  figure  of  the  father  is  discovered  behind  that  of  an  animal. 
See  Freud,  Schriften,  etc.  Ch.  1,  and  Internat.  Zeitschr.  f. 
Psychoanalyse,  Jahrg.  I,  Heft  2. — Professor  Freud  tells  me  that 
one  of  his  next  works  in  "Imago"  will  make  use  of  this  iden- 
tity to  explain  totemism.  (This  has  since  appeared  in  book 
form  under  the  title  "Totem  und  Tabu."  Transl.) 


A  Little  Chanticleer  249 

and  eat  it  up.'*  Once  he  said  quite  suddenly:  "I 
should  like  to  eat  a  potted  mother  (by  analogy: 
potted  fowl)  ;  my  mother  must  be  put  in  a  pot  and 
cooked,  then  there  would  be  a  potted  mother  and  I 
could  eat  her."  (He  grunted  and  danced  the  while). 
"I  would  cut  her  head  off  and  eat  it  this  way"  (mak- 
ing movements  as  if  eating  something  with  a  knife 
and  fork). 

After  cannibalistic  desires  of  this  sort  he  would 
at  once  get  an  attack  of  remorse,  in  which  he  maso- 
chistically yearned  for  cruel  punishments.  "I  want 
to  be  burnt,"  he  would  then  call  out :  "Break  off  my 
foot  and  put  it  in  the  fire."  "I'll  cut  my  head  off.  I 
should  like  to  cut  my  mouth  up  so  that  I  didn't  have 
any." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  by  fowl,  cock,  chicken 
he  meant  his  own  family,  for  he  said  once  quite  spon- 
taneously: "My  father  is  the  cock!"  On  another 
occasion:  "Now  I  am  small,  now  I  am  a  chicken. 
When  I  get  bigger  I  shall  be  a  fowl.  When  I  am 
bigger  still  I  shall  be  a  cock.  When  I  am  biggest  of 
all  I  shall  be  a  coachman."  (The  coachman  who 
drove  their  carriage  seemed  to  impress  him  even 
more  than  did  his  father) . 

After  this  independent  and  uninfluenced  admission 
of  the  boy  we  can  better  understand  the  enormous 
excitement  with  which  he  was  never  tired  of  watch- 
ing the  goings  on  in  the  fowl-yard.  He  could  con- 
veniently observe  in  the  hen-coop  all  the  secrets  of 


250          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analyri* 

his  own  family  about  which  no  information  was 
vouchsafed  to  him  at  home;  the  "helpful  animals" 
shewed  him  in  an  unconcealed  way  everything  he 
wanted  to  see,  especially  the  continual  sexual  activ- 
ity between  cock  and  hen,  the  laying  of  eggs,  and 
the  creeping  out  of  the  young  brood.  The  dwelling 
conditions  at  Arpad's  are  such  that  he  had  beyond 
all  question  been  an  ear-witness  to  similar  proceed- 
ings (between  the  parents).  The  curiosity  in  this 
way  aroused  he  then  had  to  satisfy  by  insatiable 
gazing  at  animals. 

We  are  also  indebted  to  Arpad  for  the  last  confir- 
mation of  my  assumption  that  the  morbid  dread  of 
cocks  was  ultimately  to  be  traced  to  the  threat  of 
castration  for  onanism. 

One  morning  he  asked  the  neighbour:  "Tell  me, 
why  do  people  die?"  (Answer:  Because  they  get  old 
and  grow  tired).  "Hm!  So  my  grandmother  was 
also  old?  No!  She  wasn't  old,  and  yet  she  died. 
Oh,  when  there's  a  God  why  does  he  always  let  me 
fall  down?  And  why  does  he  make  people  have  to 
die  ?"  Then  he  began  to  get  interested  in  angels  and 
souls,  upon  which  he  was  given  the  explanation  that 
they  are  only  fairy-tales.  At  this  he  got  quite  rigid 
with  fright  and  said :  "No !  That's  not  true !  There 
are  angels.  I  have  seen  one  who  carries  the  dead 
children  to  heaven."  Then  he  asked,  horrified: 
"Why  do  children  die?"  "How  long  can  one  live?" 


A  Little  Chanticleer  251 

It  was  only  with  great  difficulty  that  he  calmed 
down. 

It  turned  out  then  that  early  on  the  same  day  the 
chamber-maid  had  suddenly  lifted  his  bed-clothes  and 
found  him  manipulating  his  penis,  whereupon  she 
threatened  to  cut  it  off.  The  neighbour  tried  to  quiet 
him  and  told  him  that  no  harm  would  be  done  to 
him ;  every  child  did  things  of  that  sort.  Upon  which 
Arpad  cried  out  indignantly:  "That's  not  true! 
Not  every  child !  My  papa  has  never  done  anything 
like  that." 

Now  we  understand  better  his  unquenchable  rage 
towards  the  cock  who  wanted  to  do  with  his  member 
what  the  grown-ups  threatened  to  do,  and  his  awe  for 
this  sexual  animal  which  dared  to  do  everything  that 
filled  him  with  terror;  we  also  understand  the  cruel 
punishments  that  he  pronounced  on  himself  (on  ac- 
count of  the  onanism  and  the  sadistic  phantasies). 

To  complete  the  picture,  so  to  speak,  he  began 
later  on  to  occupy  himself  greatly  with  religious 
thoughts.  Old,  bearded  Jews  filled  him  with  great 
respect,  mixed  with  dread.  He  begged  his  mother 
to  invite  these  beggars  into  the  house.  When  one 
actually  came,  however,  he  would  hide  and  watch 
him  from  a  respectable  distance;  as  one  of  these 
was  going  away  the  boy  let  his  head  hang  down  and 
said,  "Now  I  am  a  beggar-fowl."  Old  Jews  inter- 
ested him,  so  he  said,  because  they  come  "from  God" 
(out  of  the  temple). 


252          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

In  conclusion  another  utterance  of  Arpad's  may  be 
given  which  shews  that  he  had  not  watched  the  go- 
ings on  of  the  fowls  so  long  for  nothing.  He  told 
his  neighbour  one  day  in  all  seriousness:  "I  shall 
marry  you  and  your  sister  and  my  three  cousins  and 
the  cook ;  no,  instead  of  the  cook  rather  my  mother." 
He  wanted,  therefore,  to  be  a  real  "cock  of  the  roost." 


CHAPTER  X 


SYMBOLISM 


The  Symbolic  Representation  of  the  Pleasures  and 
Reality  Principles  in  the  Oedipus  Myth  1 

SCHOPENHAUER  writes  :2  "Every  work  has  its 
origin  in  a  happy  thought,  and  the  latter  gives 
the  joy  of  conception ;  the  birth,  however,  the  carry- 
ing out,  is,  in  my  own  case  at  least,  not  without 
pain;  for  then  I  stand  before  my  own  soul,  like  an 
inexorable  j  udge  before  a  prisoner  lying  on  the  rack, 
and  make  it  answer  until  there  is  nothing  left  to  ask. 
Almost  all  the  errors  and  unutterable  follies  of  which 
doctrines  and  philosophies  are  so  full  seem  to  me  to 
spring  from  a  lack  of  this  probity.  The  truth  was 
not  found,  not  because  it  was  unsought,  but  because 
the  intention  always  was  to  find  again  instead  some 
preconceived  opinion  or  other,  or  at  least  not  to 
wound  some  favourite  idea,  and  with  this  aim  in  view 
subterfuges  had  to  be  employed  against  both  other 

1  Published  in  Imago,  1912. 

1  Letter  to  Goethe,  dated  November  the  llth,  1815. 
253 


Contributions  to  Psycho-Analyait 

people  and  the  thinker  himself.  It  is  the  courage  of 
making  a  clean  breast  of  it  in  face  of  every  question 
that  makes  the  philosopher.  He  must  be  like  Soph- 
ocles' Oedipus,  who,  seeking  enlightenment  concern- 
ing his  terrible  fate,  pursues  his  indefatigable 
enquiry,  even  when  he  divines  that  appalling  horror 
awaits  him  in  the  answer.  But  most  of  us  carry  in 
our  hearts  the  Jocasta,  who  begs  Oedipus  for  God's 
sake  not  to  enquire  further;  and  we  give  way  to  her, 
and  that  is  the  reason  why  philosophy  stands  where 
it  does.3  Just  as  Odin  at  the  door  of  hell  unceas- 
ingly interrogates  the  old  prophetess  in  her  grave, 
disregarding  her  opposition  and  refusals  and  prayers 
to  be  left  in  peace,  so  must  the  philosopher  interro- 
gate himself  without  mercy.  This  philosophical 
courage,  however,  which  is  the  same  thing  as  the  sin- 
cerity and  probity  of  investigation  that  you  attrib- 
ute to  me,  does  not  arise  from  reflection,  cannot 
be  wrung  from  resolutions,  but  is  an  inborn  trend 
of  the  mind." 

The  deep  and  compressed  wisdom  of  these  remarks 
deserves  to  be  discussed,  and  to  be  compared  with 
the  results  of  psycho-analysis. 

What  Schopenhauer  says  about  the  psychical  at- 
titude requisite  for  scientific  (philosophical)  produc- 
tion sounds  like  the  application  of  Freud's  formula 
about  the  "principles  of  psychical  happenings"  4  to 

•Not  underlined  in  the  original. 

*  Freud.    Jahrb.  d.  Psychoanalyse,  Bd.  Ill,  S.  1. 


Symbolism  £55 

the  theory  of  Science.  Freud  distinguishes  two  such 
principles:  the  pleasure-principle,  which  in  the  case 
of  primitive  beings  (animals,  children,  savages),  as 
in  that  of  the  more  primitive  mental  states  (in 
dreams,  wit,  phantasy,  neurosis,  psychosis)  plays 
the  leading  part  and  allows  processes  to  come  about 
that  only  strive  for  the  shortest  way  of  gaining 
pleasure,  while  the  psychical  activity  of  acts  that 
might  create  feelings  of  unpleasantness  (Urdust)  is 
withdrawn  (repression)  ;  then  the  reality-principle, 
which  presupposes  a  higher  development  and  growth 
of  the  psychical  apparatus,  and  has  as  its  charac- 
teristic that  "in  place  of  the  repression,  which  ex- 
cluded a  number  of  the  incoming  ideas  as  creative 
of  unpleasantness  (Unlust),  impartial  judgment  ap- 
pears, which  has  to  decide  whether  a  given  idea  is 
true  or  false,  i.  e.  in  harmony  with  reality  or  not, 
and  which  decides  by  comparison  with  the  memory- 
traces  of  reality." 

Only  one  kind  of  thought  activity  remains  free 
from  the  tests  of  reality,  even  after  the  inauguration 
of  the  higher  principle,  and  subject  solely  to  the 
(pleasure-principle,  namely,  phantasy,  while  it  is 
Science  that  is  most  successful  in  overcoming  the 
pleasure-principle.5 

Schopenhauer's  opinion,  quoted  above,  on  the  men- 
tal disposition  requisite  for  scientific  activity  would 
therefore  run  somewhat  as  follows  if  converted  into 

8  Freud.    Loc.  cit.,  S.  4. 


256          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

Freud's  terminology:  the  thinker  may  (and  should) 
give  his  phantasy  play,  so  as  to  be  able  to  taste  the 
"joy  of  conception" — new  ideas  are  of  course  not  to 
be  had  in  any  other  way8 — ,  but  in  order  that  these 
phantastic  notions  may  evolve  into  scientific  ideas 
they  must  first  be  submitted  to  a  laborious  testing 
by  reality. 

Schopenhauer  recognised  with  acute  perception 
that  the  greatest  resistances  raised  against  unprej- 
udiced testing  of  reality,  even  in  the  case  of  a  scien- 
tist, are  not  of  an  intellectual,  but  of  an  affective  na- 
ture. Even  the  scientist  has  human  failings  and  pas- 
sions: vanity,  jealousy,  moral  and  religious  bias  tend- 
ing to  blind  him  to  a  truth  that  is  disagreeable  to 
him ;  and  he  is  only  too  inclined  to  regard  as  true  an 
error  that  fits  his  personal  system. 

Psycho-analysis  can  only  complement  Schopen- 
hauer's postulate  in  a  single  point.  It  has  found  that 
the  inner  resistances  may  be  fixed  in  the  earliest  child- 
hood and  may  be  completely  unconscious;  it  there- 
fore demands  of  every  psychologist  who  enters  on  the 
study  of  the  human  mind  that  he  should  thoroughly 
investigate  beforehand  his  own  mental  constitution — 
inborn  and  acquired — down  to  the  deepest  layers 
and  with  all  the  resources  of  the  analytic  technique. 

Unconscious  affects,  however,  may  falsify  the 
truth  not  only  in  psychology,  but  also  in  all  other 

•See  on  this  point  Robitschek,  "Symbolisches  Oenken  in  der 
chemischen  Forschung,"  Imago,  Jahrg.  I,  Heft  1. 


Symbolism  257 

sciences,  so  we  have  to  formulate  Schopenhauer's 
postulate  as  follows :  Everyone  who  works  in  Science 
should  first  submit  himself  to  a  methodical  psycho- 
analysis. 

The  advantages  that  would  accrue  to  Science  from 
this  deepened  self-knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  scien- 
tist are  evident.  An  enormous  amount  of  power  for 
work,  which  is  now  wasted  on  infantile  controver- 
sies and  priority  disputes,  could  be  put  at  the  dis- 
posal of  more  serious  aims.  The  danger  of  "project- 
ing into  Science  as  a  generally  valid  theory  peculiar- 
ities of  one's  own  personality"  (Freud  7)  would  be 
much  less.  The  hostile  manner  also  in  which,  even 
nowadays,  new  unusual  ideas  or  scientific  proposi- 
tions are  received  when  put  forward  by  unknown  au- 
thors, unsupported  by  any  authoritative  personality, 
would  give  way  to  a  more  unprejudiced  testing  by 
reality.  I  will  go  so  far  as  to  maintain  that,  if  this 
rule  of  self-analysis  were  observed,  the  development 
of  the  various  sciences,  whidh  today  is  an  endless 
series  of  energy-wasting  revolutions  and  reactions, 
would  pursue  a  much  smoother,  yet  a  more  profitable 
and  an  accelerated  course. 

It  cannot  be  regarded  as  chance  that  the  Oedipus 
myth  immediately  occurred  to  Schopenhauer  when  he 
wished  to  illustrate  by  a  simile  the  correct  psychical 
attitude  of  the  scientist  in  mental  production  and  the 

T  Freud.  "Ratschlage,  etc."  Zentralbl.  f.  Psychoanalyse, 
Jahrj?.  II. 


S58          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analyti* 

inner  resistances  that  arise  against  this  correct  way 
of  working.  Had  he  been — as  we  analysts  are — con- 
vinced of  the  strict  determination  and  determin- 
ability  of  every  psychical  act,  this  thought  would 
surely  have  made  him  reflect.  For  us,  who  are  the 
fortunate  possessors  of  the  Freudian  psychology 
(which  like  a  mental  Dietrich  provides  a  ready  key 
to  so  many  locks  that  have  till  now  been  considered 
impossible  to  open),  it  is  not  at  all  difficult  to  re- 
trieve this  piece  of  analysis.  This  idea  that  occurred 
to  Schopenhauer  indicates  his  unconscious  percep- 
tion of  the  fact  that  of  all  inner  resistances  by  far 
the  most  significant  is  the  resistance  against  the  in- 
fantile fixation  on  hostile  tendencies  against  the  fa- 
ther and  on  incestuous  ones  towards  the  mother. 

These  tendencies,  which  through  the  civilised  edu- 
cation of  the  race  and  of  the  individual  have  become 
intensely  disagreeable,  and  have  therefore  been  re- 
pressed, draw  with  them  into  the  repression  a  large 
number  of  other  ideas  and  tendencies  associated  with 
these  complexes,  and  exclude  them  from  the  free  in- 
terchange of  thought,  or  at  all  events  no  longer  allow 
them  to  be  treated  with  scientific  objectivity. 

The  "Oedipus  complex"  is  not  only  the  nuclear 
complex  of  the  neuroses  (Freud) ;  the  kind  of  atti-1 
tude  adopted  towards  it  also  determines  the  most  im- 
portant character  traits  of  the  normal  man,  and  in 
part  also  the  greater  or  lesser  objectivity  of  the 
scientist.  A  man  of  science  who  is  prevented  by  the 


Symbolism  259 

incest  barrier  from  admitting  to  himself  nascent  in- 
clinations of  love  and  disrespect  towards  blood-re- 
lations will — so  as  to  assure  the  repression  of  these 
inclinations — also  not  want,  nor  be  able,  to  test 
in  their  reality  with  the  impartiality  demanded  by 
Science  the  actions,  works,  and  thoughts  of  other 
authorities  as  well  as  the  paternal  one. 

To  decipher  the  feeling  and  thought  content  that 
lies  behind  the  wording  of  the  Oedipus  myth  was  thus 
beyond  even  the  power  of  a  Schopenhauer,  otherwise 
so  discerning.  He  overlooked  the  fact — as  did  the 
whole  civilised  world  until  Freud — that  this  myth  is 
a  distorted  wish  phantasy,  the  projection  of  re- 
pressed wish-excitations  (father-hate,  mother-love) 
with  an  altered  pleasure-prefix  (  abhorrence,  shudder- 
ing awe)  on  to  an  external  power,  "fate."  This  re- 
construction of  the  real  meaning  of  the  myth,  its  in^ 
terpretation  as  a  "material  phenomenon"  (  Silberer) , 
was  thus  alien  to  the  philosopher.  While  writing  this 
letter  he  was  himself  dominated — so  I  believe — by  af- 
fects that  would  have  debarred  this  insight. 

The  actual  occasion  that  led  Schopenhauer  to 
chose  this  comparison  of  himself  with  Oedipus  may  be 
divined  from  the  other  parts  of  the  letter.  The  neg- 
lected philosopher  saw  himself  recognised  for  the 
first  time  by  a  man  of  Goethe's  greatness  and  stand- 
ing. He  answered  him  with  expressions  of  gratitude 
that  we  are  not  accustomed  to  from  the  proud,  self- 
confident  Schopenhauer:  "Your  Excellency's  kind 


£60          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

letter  has  given  me  great  pleasure,  because  every- 
thing coming  from  you  is  for  me  of  inestimable  value, 
a  sacred  possession.  Further,  your  letter  contains 
the  praise  of  my  work,  and  your  approval  outweighs 
in  my  estimation  that  of  any  other." 

That  sounds  absolutely  like  the  enthusiastic  grati- 
tude of  one  man  to  an  older  respected  one  in  whom 
he  hopes  to  find  the  long-sought  protector,  ».  e.  to 
find  again  the  father.  Besides  God,  King,  and 
national  heroes,  heroes  of  the  spirit  like  Goethe  are 
also  "revenants"  of  the  father  for  countless  men,  who 
transfer  to  them  all  the  feelings  of  gratitude  and  re- 
spect that  they  once  shewed  to  their  bodily  father. 
The  subsequent  quotation  of  the  Oedipus  myth,  how- 
ever, may  well  have  been  an  unconscious  reaction 
against  this — perhaps  rather  extravagant — expres- 
sion of  gratitude  towards  the  father,  a  reaction  that 
allowed  some  display  of  the  hostile  tendencies  that  go 
to  make  up  the  fundamentally  ambivalent  feeling- 
attitude  of  a  son  towards  his  father.  In  favour  of 
this  vie\7  speaks  the  fact  that  towards  the  end  the  let- 
ter becomes  more  and  more  proud  and  self-confident. 
Schopenhauer  there  asks  Goethe  to  secure  the  publi- 
cation of  his  chief  work  (Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vor- 
stellung),  and  now  speaks  to  him  as  to  an  equal; 
he  lays  a  eulogising  emphasis  on  the  unusual  value 
of  his  book,  the  remarkable  nature  of  its  contents, 
and  the  beauty  of  its  style,  closing  with  a  few  cool, 
business-like  lines,  which  might  perhaps  be  called 


Symbolism  261 

brusque.  "I  will  ask  you  please  to  give  me  a  quite 
decisive  answer  without  delay,  because  in  case  you  do 
not  accept  my  proposal  I  will  commission  someone 
who  is  going  to  the  Leipsic  fair  to  seek  a  publisher 
there  for  me." 

Perhaps  it  was  just  the  aid  of  the  attention  that 
had  been  deviated  from  the  concrete  meaning  that 
enabled  Schopenhauer  to  decipher  in  this  letter  the 
"functional  symbolism"  (which  for  some  time  escaped 
ever;  psycho-analysts)  of  certain  details  of  the  Oedi- 
pus myth. 

Silberer  gives  the  name  of  functional  symbol- 
phenomena  to  those  pictures  occurring  in  dreams, 
phantasies,  myths,  etc.,  in  which  not  the  content  of 
thought  and  imagination,  but  the  way  of  function- 
ing of  the  mind  (e.  g.  its  ease,  difficulty,  inhibition, 
etc)  is  indirectly  represented.8 

If  we  allow  Schopenhauer's  comparison  and  trans- 
late it  into  analytical-scientific  language,  we  have  to 
say  that  the  two  chief  personages  of  Sophocles'  trag- 
edy also  symbolise  the  two  principles  of  mental  ac- 
tivity. Oedipus,  "who,  seeking  enlightenment  concern- 
ing his  terrible  fate,  pursues  his  indefatigable  en- 
quiry, even  when  he  divines  that  appalling  horror 
awaits  him  in  the  answer,"  represents  the  reality- 
principle  in  the  human  mind,  which  permits  none  of 
the  emerging  ideas,  even  those  that  produce  pain,  to 

*Cp.  Silberer's  throughout  original  and  pregnant  works  on 
symbolism,  especially  those  in  the  Jahrb.  d.  Psychoanalyse,  Bd. 
1-111. 


262          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

be  repressed,  but  bids  all  to  be  equally  tested  as  to 
their  intrinsic  truth.  Jocasta,  "who  begs  Oedipus 
for  God's  sake  not  to  enquire  further,"  is  the  per- 
sonification of  the  pleasure-principle,  which,  regard- 
less of  objective  truth,  wants  nothing  else  than  to 
spare  the  ego  pain,  to  gain  pleasure  wherever  pos- 
sible, and,  so  as  to  reach  this  goal,  bans  to  the  un- 
conscious whenever  possible  all  ideas  and  thoughts 
that  threaten  to  set  free  pain. 

Encouraged  by  Schopenhauer's  interpretation  and 
its  striking  analytical  confirmation,  I  venture  to  go 
a  step  further  and  to  raise  the  question  whether  it 
is  pure  chance  that  in  both  the  Oedipus  myth  and  the 
Edda  Saga,  also  cited  by  our  philosopher,  the  real- 
ity-principle is  represented  by  men  (Oedipus,  Odin) 
and  the  pleasure-principle  by  women  (Jocasta, 
Erda).  The  psycho-analyst  is  not  accustomed  to 
fly  hastily  to  the  idea  of  "accident,"  and  would  in- 
cline rather  to  attribute  to  the  Greek  and  Teutonic 
peoples,  as  well  as  to  Sophocles  and  Schopenhauer, 
an  unconscious  knowledge  of  the  bisexuality  of  every 
human  being.  Schopenhauer  actually  says  that  most 
human  beings  carry  in  them  Oedipus  and  Jocasta. 
In  accord  with  this  interpretation  is  the  observation 
of  daily  experience  that  in  general  in  women  the  tend- 
ency to  repression — the  pleasure-principle,  there- 
fore— prevails ;  in  men  the  capacity  for  objective 
judgment  and  for  tolerating  painful  insight — the 
reality-principle,  therefore. 


Symbolism  £63 

An  eye  made  keen  by  individual-psychological  ex- 
perience will  certainly  be  able  to  discover  and  solve 
many  more  significant  symbols  in  Sophocles'  tragedy. 
I  will  only  point  out  two  very  striking  ones,  both  of 
the  category  of  "somatic  symbol-phenomena"  (Sil- 
berer),  in  which,  therefore,  bodily  states  are  mir- 
rored. To  start  with,  there  is  the  name  of  the  tragic 
hero  Oedipus,  which  in  Greek  means  "swell-foot." 
This  apparently  senseless  and  odd  denomination  at 
once  loses  this  character  when  we  know  that  in 
dreams  and  jokes,  as  well  as  in  the  fetishistic  wor- 
ship of  the  foot  or  in  the  neurotic  dread  of  this  mem- 
ber, it  symbolises  the  male  organ. 

The  fact  that  this  member  is  described  in  the  hero's 
name  as  swollen  is  sufficiently  explained  by  its  erecti- 
bility.  It  cannot  surprise  us,  by  the  way,  that  the 
myth  completely  identifies  with  a  phallus  the  man 
who  achieved  the  monstrous  feat  of  sexual  inter- 
course with  the  mother,  a  feat  no  doubt  conceived  as 
superhuman. 

The  other  somatic  symbol-phenomenon  is  Oedipus' 
self-blinding  as  a  punishment  for  his  unconscious 
committed  sins.  It  is  true  that  the  tragedian  gives 
the  explanation  for  this  punishment :  "For  why  was  I 
to  see,  When  to  descry  no  sight  on  earth  could  have 
a  charm  for  me?"  *  he  makes  Oedipus  (not  quite  un- 
equivocally) cry  out.  But  certain  psycho-analytical 

•  (I   quote  throughout  from  Sir  George  Young's  translation 
of  the  Oedipus  Tyrannus.    Transl.) 


264  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

experiences,  in  which  the  eyes  regularly  have  to  be 
interpreted  as  symbols  of  the  genital  organs,  give  me 
the  right  to  interpret  the  self-blinding  as  a  displace- 
ment of  the  really  intended  self-castration  of  Oedi- 
pus, the  talion  punishment  more  comprehensible  in 
this  connection.  To  the  horrified  question  of  the 
Chorus,  however; 

Rash  man,  how  could'st  thou  bear  to  outrage  so 
Thine  eyes?     What  Power  was  it,  what  wrought  on 

thee? 
the  hero  answers : 

Apollo,  Apollo  fulfils, 

O  friends,  my  measure  of  ills — • 

Fills  my  measure  of  woe. 

In  other  words,  it  was  the  sun  (Phoebus  Apollo), 
the  most  typical  father-symbol;10  the  hero  was  no 
longer  to  look  him  in  the  eyes,  a  consideration  that 
may  have  given  a  second  determining  factor  for  the 
distortion  of  the  castration  punishment  to  blinding.11 

*•  Freud.  "Nachtrag  zur  Analyse  Schrebers,"  Jahrb.  d.  Psy- 
choanalyse, Bd.  III. 

"These  symbol  interpretations  will  be  at  once  evident  to  the 
practised  psycho-analyst,  since  he  can  find  them  confirmed  in 
his  dream  analyses  countless  times.  While  reading  through  this 
article,  however,  I  received  from  Dr.  Otto  Rank  the  informa- 
tion that  the  correctness  both  of  the  interpretation  of  the 
name  Oedipus  here  attempted  and  that  of  the  sexual-symbolic 
explanation  «f  self-binding  could  be  determined  with  certainty 
from  comparative  mythological  studies.  In  his  work  that  has 
just  appeared,  "Das  Inzest-motiv  in  Dichtung  und  Sage,"  these 
interpretations  are  substantiated  with  a  rich  collection  of  facts, 
which  makes  it  pdssible  for  the  non-analyst  also  to  accept  them. 


Symbolism  265 

If  we  have  once  assimilated  these  interpretations, 
it  must  amaze  us  to  see  how  the  folk-soul  should 
have  managed  to  fuse  together  in  this  myth  the 
knowledge  (distorted,  it  is  true)  of  the  most  signifi- 
cant content,  the  nuclear  complex  of  the  unconscious 
(».  e.  the  parental  complex),  with  the  most  general 
and  comprehensive  formula  of  mental  activity.  Our 
amazement  gives  way  to  understanding,  however, 
when  we  have  learnt  from  Otto  Rank's  fundamental 
mytho-psychological  works  to  grasp  the  way  in 
which  the  creative  folk-soul  works.  Rank  shewed 
in  a  beautiful  example  12  that  the  individual  poet 
"by  means  of  his  own  complex-tones  succeeds  in  clari- 
fying and  emphasising  certain  attributes  of  a  trans- 
mitted material,"  but  that  the  so-called  folk -produc- 
tions are  also  to  be  regarded  as  the  work  of  numerous 
or  countless  individuals,  who  originate,  transmit, 
and  decorate  the  tradition.  "Only  in  this  case,"  he 
says  further,  "the  story  goes  through  a  series  of  sim- 
ilarly disposed  individual  minds,  each  of  which  works 
in  the  same  direction,  at  the  production  of  general 
human  motives  and  the  polishing  of  many  disturbing 
accessory  works." 

After  the  double  interpretation  of  the  Oedipus 
myth  we  may  imagine  the  crystallising  process  of 
our  myth,  described  by  Rank,  somewhat  as  follows : 

Significant    but    unconscious    psychical    dontents 

"Rank.    "Der  Sinn  dcr  Griselda-Fabel,"   Imago.   Jahrg.   I, 
Heft  1. 


$66  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

(aggressive  phantasies  against  the  father,  sexual 
hunger  for  the  mother  with  erection-tendencies,  dread 
lest  the  father  would  avenge  the  sinful  intent  with  the 
punishment  of  castration)  procured,  each  for  itself, 
indirect  symbolic  representatives  in  the  consciousness 
of  all  men.  Men  with  special  creative  capacities, 
poets,  give  expression  to  these  universal  symbols.  In 
this  way  the  mythical  motives  of  exposure  by  the  par- 
ents, victory  over  the  father,  unconscious  inter- 
course with  the  mother,  and  self-blinding,  might  have 
arisen  in  individuals  independent  of  one  another.  In 
the  course  of  the  passage  of  the  myths  through 
countless  poetic  individual  minds,  one  that  Rank  has 
made  probable,  condensation  of  the  separate  motives 
led  secondarily  to  a  greater  unity,  which  then  proved 
to  be  durable  and  which  was  fashioned  anew  in  much 
the  same  form  by  all  peoples  and  at  all  times.13 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  in  this,  as  also  in 
every  other  myth,  and  perhaps  indeed  with  mental 
productivity  in  general,  parallel  with  the  tendency  to 
give  expression  to  psychical  contents  there  is  also  an 
unconscious  aim  at  bringing  to  presentation  the  men- 
tal ways  of  functioning  that  are  operative  in  master- 
ing these  contents.14  Only  this  latter  fusion  then 

MSee  on  this  point  Rank,  Der  Mythus  von  der  Geburt  des 
Helden  (Schriften  zur  angewandten  Seelenkunde,  Heft  V). 

"Silberer,  to  whom  we  owe  the  formulation  of  the  idea  of 
functional  symbolism,  cites  a  long  series  of  myths  and  fairy- 
tales that  can  be  resolved  into  both  material  and  functional 
symbol-phenomena.  ("Phantasie  und  Mythos,"  Jahrb.  d.  Psy- 
choanalyse, Bd.  II.) 


Symbolism 


267 


yields  the  perfected  myth,  which  without  foregoing 
any  of  its  effect  on  men  is  transmitted  unchanged 
for  hundreds  of  years.  So  was  it  with  the  Oedipus 
myth,  in  which  not  only  the  most  deeply  repressed 
feeling  and  thought  complexes  of  mankind  are  rep- 
resented in  images,  but  also  the  play  of  the  mental 
forces  that  were  operative  in  the  attempt  to  master 
these  contents,  differing  according  to  sex  and  indi- 
viduality. 

For  the  correctness  of  this  interpretation  let  some 
passages  from  the  tragedy  itself  bear  witness : 

Oedipus:     And  how  can  I  help  dreading 

My  mother's  bed? 
,/ocasta:  But  why  should  men  be  fearful,.  . 

O'er    whom    Fortune    is    mistress,    and 
fore-knowledge 

Of  nothing  sure?     Best  take  life  eas- 

%,15 
As   a  man  may.      For   that   maternal 

wedding, 
Have  you  no  fear;  for  many  men  ere 

now 
Have  dreamed  as  much ;  but  he  who  by 

such  dreams 
Sets  nothing,  has  the  easiest  life  of  it. 

***** 
11  The  passages  in  Italics  are  not  underlined  in  the  original. 


268          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

Jocasta  (to  OEDIPUS,  who,  enquiring  after  the 
frightful  truth*  summons  the  only  witness  of  the 
crime) : 

Why  ask  who  'twas  he  spoke  of  ? 
Nay,  never  mind — never  remember  it — 
'Twas  idly  spoken ! 
Oedipus:  Nay,  it  cannot  be 

That  having  such  a  clue  I  should  refuse 

To  solve  the  mystery  of  my  parentage ! 

Jocasta:         For  heaven's  sake,  if  you  care  for  your 

own  life, 
Don't  seek  it!     I  am  sick,  and  that's 

enough! 

*  *         *         *         * 

Jocasta:     But  I  beseech  you,  hearken !    Do  not  do 

it! 
Oedipus:     I  will  not  hearken — not  to  know  the 

whole. 

Jocasta :     I  mean  well ;  and  I  tell  you  for  the  best ! 
Oedipus:     What  you  call  best  is  an  old  sore  of 

mine. 
Jocasta:     Wretch,  what  thou  art  O  might' st  thou 

never  know! 

*  *          *          *          « 

Oedipus:     Break  out  what  will,  I  shall  not  hesi- 
tate, 

Low  though  it  be,  to  trace  the  sourct 
of  me. 

***** 


Symbolism  269 

Shepherd  (who  was  ordered  to  kill  the  new-born 
Oedipug,  but  who  exposed  him,  to  the  open )  : 

O,  I  am  at  the  horror,  now,  to  speak! 
Oedipus:     And  I  to  hear.     But  I  must  hear — no 
less. 

"The  Jocasta  in  us,"  as  Schopenhauer  says,  the 
pleasure-principle,  as  we  express  it,  wishes  thus  that 
a  man  "should  best  take  life  easily,  as  a  man  may," 
that  he  "set  no  store  by"  (suppresses)  the  things 
that  disturb  him,  e.  g.  that  with  the  most  superficial 
motivation  he  should  refuse  to  accord  any  signifi- 
cance to  phantasies  and  dreams  about  the  death  of 
his  father  and  sexual  intercourse  with  his  mother, 
pay  no  attention  to  disagreeable  and  dangerous  talk, 
not  search  after  the  origin  of  things,  but  above  all 
it  warns  a  man  against  recognising  who  he  is. 

The  reality-principle,  however,  the  Oedipus  in 
the  human  soul,  does  not  allow  the  seductions  of 
pleasure  to  keep  him  from  penetrating  into  even  a 
bitter  or  a  horrible  truth,  it  estimates  nothing  so 
lowly  as  to  be  not  worth  testing,  it  is  not  ashamed 
to  seek  the  true  psychological  nucleus  of  even  super- 
stitious prophecies  and  dreams,  and  learns  to  endure 
the  knowledge  that  in  the  inmost  soul  aggressive  and 
sexual  instincts  dwell  that  do  not  pause  even  at  the 
barriers  erected  by  civilisation  between  the  son  and 
his  parents. 


£70          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

II 


On  Eye  Symbolism 


i« 


Relying  on  psycho-analytical  experience,  I  have 
tried  to  interpret  Oedipus*  self-blinding  as  a  self- 
castration.17  I  wish  here  to  relate  shortly  the  facts 
on  which  I  relied  for  the  purpose  of  this  interpreta- 
tion. 

1.  A  young  lady  suffered  from  a  phobia  of  sharp 
objects,  especially  needles.     Her  obsessive  fear  ran : 
such  an  object  might   sometime  put   out  her  eyes. 
Closer  investigation  of  the  case  disclosed  the  fact 
that  the  lady  had  for  a  number  of  years  lived  with 
her   friend   in    sexual   intimacy,   but   had   anxiously 
guarded   against   permitting   the   intermissio   penis, 
which  would  have  impaired  her  anatomical  integrity 
by  rupturing  the  hymen.     All  sorts  of  accidents  now 
kept  happening  to  her,  most  of  which  affected  the 
eye;  most  commonly  unintentional  self-inflicted  in- 
juries with  needles.     Interpretation  :  Substitution  of 
the  genitals  by  the  eyes,  and  representation  of  the 
wishes  and  fears  relating  to  the  former  by  accidental 
actions  and  phobias  relating  to  the  latter. 

2.  A    myopic  patient  with  conscious  fears  of  in- 
feriority   and    compensating    grandiose    phantasies 
transferred  all  his  hypochondriac  and  anxious  feel- 

14  Published  in  the  Internal.  Zeitschr.  f.  arztl.  Psychoanalyse, 
1913,  as  a  contribution  to  the  symposium  on  eye  symbolism. 
"  See  Chapter  X,  Section  1. 


Symbolism  271 

ings,  and  an  exaggerated  sense  of  shame,  on  to  his 
short-sightedness;  these  feelings,  however,  relate  in 
his  unconscious  to  the  genitals.  When  a  small  child 
he  had  sexual  "omnipotent  phantasies"  concerning 
his  mother  and  sister ;  later  on  painful  realisation  of 
his  sexual  inferiority  ("small  penis"  complex,  hypo- 
chondria, "states  of  weakness"),  which  was  com- 
pensated for  by  excesseive  onanism  and  sadistic  acts 
of  coitus.  With  the  help  of  the  symbolic  equating: 
eye— genital,  he  managed  to  represent  by  means  of 
the  eye  a  great  part  of  his  sexual  wishes  and  fears. 
An  incomplete  analytic  enlightenment  reduced  his 
hypochondria  very  appreciably. 

3.  I  had  the  opportunity  of  getting  to  know  a 
family  whose  members  suffered  without  exception 
from  an  exaggerated  fear  of  injuries  and  diseases 
of  the  eye.  The  mere  mention  of  bad  or  injured  eyes 
made  them  get  pale,  and  the  sight  of  such  things 
could  lead  to  fainting.  In  one  member  of  the  family 
the  psychical  disturbances  of  potency  could  be  rec- 
ognised to  be  the  manifestations  of  masochism  which 
had  appeared  as  a  reaction  against  sadistic  desires; 
the  fear  of  eye  injuries  was  the  reaction  to  the  sa- 
distic wish  to  injure  the  eye,  a  displacement  of  the 
sadistic  coitus  wish.  It  had  been  very  easy  for  the 
sadistic-masochistic  components  of  the  sexual  in- 
stinct to  be  transferred  from  the  genital  to  another 
organ  susceptible  to  injury. 

Another  member  of  this  family  extended  fear  and 


272  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

disgust  for  eyes  on  to  corns  as  well ;  in  this  not  only 
the  external  resemblance  and  the  identity  of  the 
name,18  but  a  second  symbolic  equating  (toe=penis) 
played  a  part.  This  was  evidently  an  attempt  to 
bring  the  symbol  eye  once  more  nearer  to  the  real 
thing  (genital  organ)  with  the  help  of  a  mediate 
idea  (corn). 

4.  A  patient  who  was  afraid  of  beetles  when  a 
child  developed  at  the  time  of  puberty  a  dread  of  see- 
ing himself  in  a  mirror,  especially  of  seeing  his  own 
eyes  and  eyebrows.     This  dread  turned  out  to  be  on 
the  one  hand  an  auto-perception  of  his  tendency  to 
repression  (not  wanting  to  look  himself  in  the  eye), 
on  the  other  hand  a  representation  of  the  fear  of 
onanism.    With  the  help  of  the  idea  of  movability  the 
child  succeeded  in  displacing  his  attention  and  affects 
from  the  spontaneously  movable  (erectile)  organ  on 
to  the  movable  beetle.  The  beetle's  vulnerability  also, 
the  way  in  which  even  a  child  can  so  easily  crush  it 
under  foot,  renders  it  a  suitable  object  for  taking  the 
place  of  the  original  object  of  attack,  the  sexual  or- 
gan.    A  further  displacement  then  set  the  equally 
movable  and  vulnerable  eye  in  place  of  the  beetle. 
I  might  also  mention  that  in  Hungarian  the  pupil 
is   designated  by   a   word   meaning  literally,   "eye- 
beetle." 

5.  In  a  whole  series  of  anxiety  dreams  (mostly 

u  (Corns    in    German    are    called    "Hiihneraugen,"    literally 
"fowls'  eyes."     Transl.) 


Symbolism  273 

recollected  from  childhood)  eyes  figure  that  grow 
alternately  larger  and  smaller.  From  the  total  con- 
text I  have  had  to  regard  these  eyes  as  symbols  of 
the  male  sexual  organ  in  its  changing  size  (erection). 
The  apparent  change  in  size  of  the  eyes  on  opening 
and  closing  the  lids  is  obviously  used  by  the  child  to 
represent  genital  processes  that  are  accompanied  by 
changes  in  size.  Children's  dread,  often  excessive,  of 
their  parents'  eyes  has  also,  in  my  opinion,  a  sexual- 
symbolic  root. 

6.  In  another  series  of  dreams,  eyes  (as  paired 
organs)  represent  the  testicles.  Since  the  face 
(apart  from  the  hands)  is  the  only  uncovered  part 
of  the  body,  children  have  to  satisfy  all  their  curi- 
osity relating  to  other  parts  of  the  body  on  the  head 
and  face  of  their  adult  friends,  especially  the  par- 
ents. Each  part  of  the  face  thus  becomes  the  rep- 
resentative of  one  or  more  genital  areas.  The  face 
is  specially  well  adapted  (nose  in  the  middle  be- 
tween the  eyes  and  eyebrows,  with  the  mouth  below) 
for  representation  of  the  penis,  testicles,  pubic  hair, 
and  anus. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  sense  of  embarrassment 
one  experiences  on  being  stared  at,  and  which  keeps 
one  from  staring  hard  at  others,  finds  its  explana- 
tion in  the  sexual-symbolic  significance  of  the  parts 
of  the  face.  This  must  also  go  to  explain  the  marked 
effect  of  the  hypnotiser's  eyes  on  his  medium.  I  may 
refer  also  to  the  sexual  symbolism  in  ogling,  in  the 


274  Contributions  to  Pgycho-4iia1if.<}i* 

bashful  drooping  of  the  eyes,  casting  of  the  eyes  on 
someone,  etc.,  further  such  expressions  as  "to  cast 
eyes  at  someone,  to  throw  sheep's  eyes,"  9  etc. 

7.  Finally  I  may  relate  the  case  of  an  obsessional 
patient  who  confirmed  subsequently  my  interpreta- 
tion of  Oedipus'  self-blinding.  As  a  child  he  was 
unusually  spoilt,  fixed  on  his  parents,  but  very  bash- 
ful and  modest.  One  day  he  learnt  from  other  chil- 
dren the  real  course  of  sexual  relations  between  the 
parents.  At  this  he  displayed  intense  anger  at  his 
father,  often  with  the  conscious  phantasy  that  he 
was  castrating  him  (the  father),  which  was  always 
followed,  however,  by  remorse  and  self-punishment. 
Now  one  of  these  self-punishments  was  that  he  de- 
stroyed the  eyes  in  his  own  portrait.  I  was  able  to 
explain  to  the  patient  that  in  doing  so  he  was  only 
expiating  in  a  disguised  way  the  castration  he  had 
wished  to  perform  on  his  father,  in  accordance  with 
the  Mosaic  talion  threat  of  punishment,  "an  eye  for 
an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,"  which,  by  the  way, 
takes  for  example  just  the  two  castration  symbols, 
blinding  and  tooth-extraction.20 

In  a  work  on  the  stages  in  the  development  of  the 
sense  of  reality  21  I  have  attempted  to  explain  the 
origin  of  symbolism  from  the  impulse  to  represent  in- 
fantile wishes  as  being  fulfilled,  by  means  of  the 

w  (Cp.  the  modern  slang  expression,  "to  make  a  glad  eye." 
Transl.) 

"  See  my  remarks  on  tooth-symbolism  in  Chapter  VI. 
"Chapter  VIII. 


Symbolism  275 

child's  own  body.  The  symbolic  identification  of  ex- 
ternal objects  with  bodily  organs  makes  it  possible  to 
find  again,  on  the  one  hand,  all  the  wished-for  ob- 
jects of  the  world  in  the  individual's  body,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  treasured  organs  of  the  individual's 
body  in  objects  conceived  in  an  animistic  manner. 
The  tooth  and  eye  symbolism  would  be  examples  of 
the  fact  that  bodily  organs  (principally  the  genital 
ones)  can  be  represented  not  only  by  objects  of  the 
outer  world,  but  also  by  other  organs  of  the  body. 
In  all  probability  this  is  even  the  more  primary  kind 
of  symbol-creation. 

I  imagine  that  this  symbolic  equating  of  genital 
organs  with  other  organs  and  with  external  objects 
originally  happens  only  in  a  playful  way,  out  of  ex- 
uberance, so  to  speak.  The  equations  thus  arising, 
however,  are  secondarily  made  to  serve  repression, 
which  seeks  to  weaken  one  member  of  the  equation, 
while  it  symbolically  over-emphasises  the  other,  more 
harmless  one  by  the  amount  of  the  repressed  affect. 
In  this  way  the  upper  half  of  the  body,  as  the  more 
harmless  one,  attains  its  sexual-symbolic  significance, 
and  so  comes  about  what  Freud  calls  "Displacement 
from  below  upwards."  In  this  work  of  repression, 
the  eyes  have  proved  to  be  specially  adapted  to  re- 
ceive the  affects  displaced  from  the  genital  region, 
on  account  of  their  shape  and  changeable  size,  their 
movability,  their  high  value,  and  their  sensitiveness. 
It  is  to  be  supposed,  however,  that  this  displacement 


276          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

would  not  have  succeeded  so  well,  had  not  the  eye  al- 
ready had  from  the  beginning  that  significant  libidi- 
nous value  that  Freud  describes  in  his  "Sexualtheo- 
rie"  as  a  special  component  of  the  sexual  instinct 
(the  impulse  of  sexual  visual  curiosity). 

Ill 

The  Ontogenesis  of  Symbols  22 

Dr.  Beaurain's  remarks  23  about  the  ways  in  which 
the  child  comes  to  form  its  first  general  concepts 
can  be  fully  confirmed  by  whoever  has  had  the  oppor- 
tunity to  watch  the  mental  development  of  the  child, 
either  directly,  or  else  indirectly  via  parents  whose 
powers  of  observation  had  been  psychologically 
sharpened.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  child 
(like  the  unconscious)  identifies  two  things  on  the 
basis  of  the  slightest  resemblancej  displaces  affects 
with  ease  from  one  to  the  other,  and  gives  the  same 
name  to  both.  Such  a  name  is  thus  the  highly  con- 
densed representative  of  a  large  number  of  funda- 
mentally different  individual  things,  which,  however, 
are  in  some  way  or  other  (even  if  ever  so  distantly) 
similar  and  are  for  this  reason  identified.  Advance 
in  the  knowledge  of  reality  (intelligence)  then  mani- 

*  Published  in  the  Internal.  Zeitschr.  f.  arztl.  Psychoanalyse, 
1913. 

*  Beaurain,  "Ueber  das  Symbol  und  die  psychischen  Bedin- 
gungen  fur  sein  Entstehen  beim  Kinde,"  in  the  same  number 
of  the  Zeitschrift. 


Symbolism  277 

fests  itself  in  the  child  in  the  progressive  resolution 
of  such  condensation-products  into  their  elements,  in 
learning  to  distinguish  from  one  another  things  that 
are  similar  in  one  respect  but  otherwise  different. 
Many  writers  have  already  rightly  grasped  and  de- 
scribed this  process ;  Silberer's  and  Beaurain's  com- 
munications on  the  subject  have  brought  further 
confirmation  and  have  deepened  our  insight  into  the 
details  of  this  development  process  in  the  mind. 

All  these  authors  see  in  the  infantile  inadequacy 
of  the  capacity  for  making  distinctions  the  chief 
factor  in  the  origination  of  the  ontogenetic  and  phy- 
Ipgenetic  preliminary  stages  of  the  knowledge  proc- 
esses. 

I  should  like  here  to  raise  an  objection  only 
against  designating  all  these  preliminary  stages  in 
knowledge  with  the  word  "Symbol;"  similes,  allego- 
ries, metaphors,  allusions,  parables,  emblems,  and  in- 
direct representations  of  every  sort  might  also  in  a 
certain  sense  be  conceived  as  products  of  this  lack  of 
sharpness  in  distinction  and  definition,  and  yet  they 
are  not — in  the  psycho-analytical  sense — symbols. 
Only  such  things  (or  ideas)  are  symbols  in  the  sense 
of  psycho-analysis  as  are  invested  in  consciousness 
with  a  logically  inexplicable  and  unfounded  affect, 
and  of  which  it  may  be  analytically  established  that 
they  owe  this  affective  over-emphasis  to  unconscious 
identification  with  another  thing  (or  idea),  to  which 
the  surplus  of  affect  really  belongs.  Not  all  similes, 


278          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

therefore,  are  symbols,  but  only  those  in  which  the 
one  member  of  the  equation  is  repressed  into  the  un- 
conscious.24 Rank  and  Sachs  conceive  a  symbol  in 
the  same  sense.25  "We  understand  by  this,"  they 
say,  "a  special  kind  of  indirect  representation  which 
is  distinguished  by  certain  peculiarities  from  other 
allied  kinds,  such  as  the  simile,  the  metaphor,  the 
allegory,  the  allusion,  and  other  forms  of  figurative 
representation  of  thought-material  (of  the  rebus  va- 
riety)," and  "it  is  a  substitutive,  illustrative  replace- 
ment-expression for  something  hidden." 

This  being  so,  it  is  more  prudent  not  to  assume  that 
the  conditions  under  which  symbols  arise  are  identi- 
cal with  those  for  analogy-formation  in  general,  but 
to  presuppose  for  this  specific  kind  of  analogy-for- 
mation specific  conditions  of  origin,  and  to  search  for 
these. 

Now  analytical  experience  shews  us  in  fact  that 
although  the  condition  of  intellectual  insufficiency 
has  to  be  fulfilled  with  the  formation  of  real  symbols 
as  well,  the  chief  conditions  for  their  production  are 
not  of  an  intellectual,  but  of  an  affective  nature.  I 
will  demonstrate  this  with  individual  examples  from 
sexual  symbolism. 

So  long  as  the  necessities  of  life  do  not  compel 

*See  on  this  matter  my  remarks  in  earlier  articles,  Ch.  VI, 
Ch.  VIII,  Ch.  X,  Sect.  2,  and  my  review  on  Jung's  Libido  essay 
in  the  Internat.  Zeitschr.  f.  arztl.  Psychoanalyse,  Jahrg.  I,  S. 
393. 

38  Rank  und  Sachs.  Die  Bedeutung  der  Psychoanalyse  flir 
die  Geisteswissenschaften.  1913.  S.  11.  et  seq.  .  .  . 


Symbolism  279 

them  to  adaptation  and  therewith  to  the  knowledge 
of  reality,  children  concern  themselves  to  begin  with 
only  about  the  satisfaction  of  their  instincts,  i.  e. 
about  the  parts  of  the  body  where  this  satisfaction 
takes  place,  about  the  objects  suited  to  evoke  this, 
and  about  the  actions  that  actually  evoke  the  satis- 
faction. Of  the  sexually  excitable  parts  of  the  body 
(erogenous  zones),  for  instance,  they  are  specially 
interested  in  the  mouth,  the  anus,  and  the  genitals. 
"What  wonder,  then,  if  also  his  attention  is  arrested 
above  all  by  those  objects  and  processes  of  the  outer 
world  that  on  the  ground  of  ever  so  distant  a  re- 
semblance remind  him  of  his  dearest  experiences."  26 
Thus  comes  about  the  "sexualisation  of  every- 
thing." 2T  In  this  stage  small  boys  are  prone  to 
apply  the  childish  term  for  genitals  to  all  long  ob- 
jects, they  see  an  anus  in  every  hole,  urine  in  every 
fluid,  and  faeces  in  every  softish  material. 

A  boy,  aged  about  one  and  a  half,  said  when  he 
was  first  shewn  the  Danube :  "What  a  lot  of  spit !" 
A  two-year-old  boy  called  everything  that  could 
open,  a  door,  including  even  his  parents'  legs,  since 
these  can  open  and  shut  (be  abducted  and  adducted). 

Similar  analogies  are  formed  also  within  the  sphere 
of  the  bodily  organs  themselves:  Penis  and  tooth, 
anus  and  mouth,  become  equated.  Perhaps  the  child 
finds  an  equivalent  in  the  upper  part  of  the  body 

"Ch.  VIII.  P.  193. 

9  (A    well-known    expression    of    the    philologist    Kleinpaul. 
Transl.) 


280  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

(especially  on  the  head  and  face)  for  every  affective- 
ly important  part  of  the  lower  half. 

This  equating,  however,  is  not  yet  symbolism.  Only 
from  the  moment  when  as  the  result  of  cultural  edu- 
cation the  one  member  of  the  equation  (the  more  im- 
portant one)  is  repressed,  does  the  other  previously 
less  important  member  attain  affective  over-signifi- 
cance and  become  a  symbol  of  the  repressed  one. 
Originally  penis  and  tree,  penis  and  church-steeple, 
were  consciously  equated;  but  only  with  the  repres- 
sion of  the  interest  in  the  penis  do  the  tree  and 
church-steeple  become  invested  with  inexplicable  and 
apparently  ungrounded  interest;  they  become  penis 
symbols. 

In  this  way  also  eyes  become  symbols  of  the  geni- 
talia,  with  which  they  had  previously  been  identified 
— on  the  ground  of  extrinsic  resemblance.  There 
thus  comes  about  a  symbolic  over-emphasis  of  the 
upper  half  of  the  body  in  general,  after  interest  in 
the  lower  half  has  been  repressed,  and  all  genital 
symbols  that  play  such  an  extensive  part  in  dreams 
(necktie,  snake,  tooth-drawing,  box,  ladder,  etc.) 
must  have  originated  ontogenetically  in  the  same 
way.  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  in  a  dream  of  the 
boy  mentioned  above  a  door  re-appeared  as  a  symbol 
of  the  parental  lap,  and  in  a  dream  of  the  other 
boy's  the  Danube  as  a  symbol  of  bodily  fluids. 

I  desired  with  these  examples  to  point  out  the 
overwhelming  significance  of  affective  factors  in  the 


Symbolism  281 

production  of  true  symbols.  It  is  they  that  have  to 
be  taken  into  consideration  in  the  first  place  when 
one  wishes  to  distinguish  symbols  from  other  psychi- 
cal products  (metaphors,  similes,  etc.),  which  are 
also  the  result  of  condensation.  One-sided  consider- 
ation of  formal  and  rational  conditions  in  the  expla- 
nation of  psychical  processes  can  easily  lead  one 
astray. 

For  instance,  one  was  formerly  inclined  to  believe 
that  things  are  confounded  because  they  are  similar ; 
nowadays  we  know  that  a  thing  is  confounded  with 
another  only  because  certain  motives  for  this  are 
present;  similarity  merely  provides  the  opportunity 
for  these  motives  to  function.  In  the  same  way  it 
must  be  said  that  apperceptive  insufficiency  alone, 
without  consideration  of  the  motives  impelling  to- 
wards analogy-formation,  do  not  adequately  explain 
the  creation  of  symbols. 


CHAPTER  XI 

SOME    CLINICAL    OBSERVATIONS    ON    PARANOIA    AND 
PARAPHRENIA  J 

(Contribution  to  the  Psychology  of  "System- 
Constmctions") 


THE  sister  of  a  young  artist  called  on  me  one 
day  and  told  me  that  her  brother  A.,  a  very 
talented  man,  had  been  behaving  for  some  time  in  a 
very  peculiar  manner.  He  had  read  a  doctor's  trea- 
tise on  the  serum  treatment  of  tuberculosis,2  since 
when  he  had  been  the  whole  time  concerned  only 
about  himself,  had  got  his  urine  and  sputum  exam- 
ined for  abnormal  constituents,  and,  although  there 
were  none  present,  had  undergone  the  serum  treat- 
ment with  the  doctor  in  question.  It  was  soon  plain 
that  it  was  not  a  question  of  a  simple  hypochondriac 
moodiness  with  him.  Not  only  the  treatise,  but  also 

1  Published  in  the  Internal.  Zeitschr.  f.  arztl.  Psychoanalyse, 
1914. 

'This  treatise,  which  traced  almost  all  nervous  and  psychical 
disturbances  to  tuberculosis,  and  advised  a  corresponding  treat- 
ment, gave  my  psychoneurotics  plenty  to  do. 

282 


Observations  on  Paranoia  and  Paraphrenia     28S 

the  doctor's  personality  made  an  unusual  impression 
on  him.  When  on  one  occasion  the  doctor  treated 
him  in  a  rather  off-hand  way,  he  immersed  himself  in 
making  notes  (which  the  sister  gave  me  to  read)  of 
endless  worryings  as  to  how  this  behaviour  of  the 
doctor  could  be  harmonised  with  the  fact  that  he 
was  a  real  savant  (which  he  did  not  venture  to 
doubt. )  It  then  turned  out  that  his  hypochondriacal 
ideas  were  interwoven  in  a  larger  philosophical  sys- 
tem, built,  so  to  speak,  into  the  structure  of  the  lat- 
ter. For  a  long  time  the  young  man  had  been  in- 
terested in  Ostwald's  natural  philosophy,  and  was 
an  eager  follower  of  his ;  the  energetic  main  idea  and 
the  marked  emphasis  laid  on  the  economic  principle 
in  Ostwald's  proposals  had  made  a  specially  deep 
impression  on  him.  The  statement  that  one  should 
accomplish  as  much  as  possible  with  as  little  expendi- 
ture of  energy  as  possible  he  wanted  to  realise  in 
every  respect  in  the  practical  affairs  of  his  life,  but 
in  doing  so  he  went  to  extremes  that  struck  even  his 
sister  (who  had  a  specially  high  estimation  of  her 
brother's  intelligence)  as  peculiar.  So  long  as  he 
only  prescribed  (in  writing)  uncommonly  exact  ar- 
rangements for  the  day,  in  which  every  bodily  and 
every  kind  of  mental  activity  was  allotted  a  definite 
time,  he  might  still  have  passed  as  a  specially  dutiful 
pupil  of  his  master,  but  later  he  began  to  exaggerate 
the  tendency  to  economy  to  such  an  extent  as  to  drive 
it — unconsciously,  of  course — to  downright  absurd- 


284          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

ity.  This  became  most  evident  when  the  amalgama- 
tion with  the  hypochondriacal  ideas  came  about.  He 
experienced  paraesthesias  in  the  most  diverse  organs, 
among  others  in  the  legs ;  he  remarked  that  the  lat- 
ter ones  disappeared  when  he  lifted  his  leg.  In  order, 
now,  to  deflect  his  attention  (whose  energy,  accord- 
ing to  his  convictions,  he  felt  obliged  to  employ  for 
more  valuable  matters  than  the  perception  of  bodily 
states)  from  the  sensations  in  the  leg,  his  sister  had 
to  hold  his  leg  up  in  the  air  so  that  he  could  engross 
himself  in  thought  undisturbed,  the  most  valuable  ac- 
complishment of  which  he  was  capable.  The  sister 
often  faithfully  carried  out  this  wish.  Gradually  he 
came  to  see  that  he  ought  really  not  to  perform  any 
work  at  all  himself  except  thinking ;  the  carrying  out 
of  his  ideas  in  detail — a  subordinate  task — must  be 
left  to  people  with  feebler  capacities.  In  this  way 
he  finally  became  occupied  only  with  the  statement 
of  problems,  and  employed  his  whole  time  in  reflect- 
ing on  ultimate  scientific,  psychological,  and  philo- 
sophical questions.  He  directed  those  around  him 
to  see  to  it,  in  ways  exactly  prescribed  by  him,  that 
he  had  absolute  rest  during  his  mental  work.  All 
this  still  would  not  have  caused  his  family  any  seri- 
ous solicitude  had  he  not  given  himself  up  to  com- 
plete inactivity,  after  having  up  till  then  conscien- 
tiously carried  out  his  projects.  In  his  endeavour 
to  work  "with  the  most  favourable  coefficients  possi- 
ble" he  had  thus  brought  himself  to  a  point  where  he 


Observations  on  Paranoia  and  Paraphrenia     285 

neglected  the  tasks  that  lay  nearest  to  hand  (since 
they  could  not  be  literally  harmonised  with  the  the- 
ory of  energetic  economy)  ;  the  precept  of  creating 
in  the  most  economic  way  possible  thus  served  him, 
and  quite  consistently,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  up 
creating  altogether.  He  lay  inactive  for  hours  in 
certain  artificially  arranged  positions.  This  latter 
I  had  to  regard  as  a  variety  of  catatonic  posture, 
and  the  purely  psychical  symptoms  as  fragments  of 
hypochondriacal  and  megalomaniac  ideas ;  I  gave  the 
patient's  family  to  understand  that  I  considered  the 
case  to  be  one  of  paranoid  paraphrenia  (dementia 
praecox),  and  that  the  young  man  needed  for  the 
time  being  to  be  certified  as  insane.  The  family  at 
first  refused  to  accept  the  diagnosis  and  the  advice, 
although  I  left  open  the  possibility  that  it  might 
prove  to  be  a  slight  and  passing  attack. 

Soon  after,  the  sister  came  again  and  told  me  that 
the  brother  had  begged  her  to  sleep  in  his  room,  on 
the  ground  that  he  felt  better  so,  which  was  good  for 
his  mental  capacity ;  the  sister  assented  to  his  wishes. 
For  a  few  nights  he  did  nothing  but  get  her  to  hold 
his  leg  up.  Then  he  began  to  talk  to  her  of  erotic 
longings  and  erections,  which  disturbed  him  in  his 
work.  In  between  he  spoke  of  his  father,  who,  he 
said,  had  treated  him  too  strictly,  and  towards  whom 
he  had  until  then  felt  coldly;  only  now  had  he  dis- 
covered in  her,  as  in  the  father,  their  fondness  for 
him.  Suddenly  he  said:  It  was  against  energetic 


286          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

economy  for  him  to  satisfy  his  erotic  needs  with 
strange  women  and  for  money;  it  would  be  simpler 
and  less  trouble,  not  to  mention  without  danger  or 
expense :  in  a  word,  more  economical,  if  the  sister,  in 
the  interest  of  his  psychical  capacity  and  faithfully 
following  the  "energetic  imperative,"  gave  herself  to 
him.  After  this  occurrence  (which,  by  the  way,  the 
sister  kept  secret),  and  after  the  patient  had  threat- 
ened to  commit  suicide,  he  was  committed  to  an 
asylum. 

n 

A  very  intelligent  young  man,  B,  who  besides 
punctiliously  fulfilling  his  official  duties  achieved 
quite  remarkable  poetic  accomplishments,  and  whose 
development  I  had  watched  for  over  fourteen  years, 
was  always  recognised  by  me  to  be  one  of  those  in- 
sane persons,  with  delusions  of  grandeur  and  of  per- 
secution, who  know  how  to  keep  their  symptoms 
within  such  bounds  that  they  can  still  exist  in  society. 
Since  I  liked  his  literary  works  and  had  several  times 
tried — in  vain,  however — to  direct  the  interest  of 
some  prominent  people  to  him,  he  became  very  fond  of 
me.  He  called  on  me  about  once  a  month,  told  me 
his  troubles  as  to  a  father-confessor,  and  always 
went  away  to  some  extent  relieved.  At  his  work  his 
colleagues  and  superiors — so  he  told  me — placed  him, 
in  the  most  painful  situations.  According  to  him, 
he  always  did  his  duty,  indeed,  as  a  rule,  more  than 


Observations  on  Paranoia  and  Paraph  re nia        287 

was  asked  of  him,  and  still  (or  perhaps  for  that  very 
reason!)  they  were  all  hostile  to  him.  They  were 
evidently  envious  of  him  on  account  of  his  superior 
intelligence  and  his  high  connections.  When  asked 
about  the  annoyances  under  which  he  had  to  suffer, 
he  could  only  give  as  examples  some  trivial  jokes  of 
his  colleagues  and  a  degree  of  disdain  on  the  chief's 
part  that  did  not  go  beyond  what  is  common  enough. 
He  took  his  revenge  in  making  a  special  note  of  all 
the  pieces  of  carelessness,  of  slackness,  and  of  rule- 
breaking,  also  of  supposed  unfair  advantages,  with 
which  the  other  officials  could  be  charged.  From 
time  to  time,  when  his  pent-up  discontent  broke  out 
in  open  rebellion,  he  would  rake  up  all  these  matters, 
mostly  quite  things  of  the  past,  and  bring  them  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  director,  with  the  result  that 
he  himself  always  incurred  unpleasantnesses  and  re- 
proofs, but  sometimes  his  colleagues  and  superiors 
likewise.  Finally  he  really  managed  to  embroil  him- 
self with  almost  everybody,  and  so  was  spared  the 
trouble  of  having  to  construe  his  colleagues'  hostility 
out  of  trivial  indications ;  he  got  himself  thoroughly 
hated ;  every  department  was  glad  to  get  rid  of  him, 
and  made  use  of  every  opportunity  to  get  him  trans- 
ferred to  another.  After  such  transferences  there 
were  also  "transference-improvements." 3  With 

1  (Versetzunysbvasuruugen:  A  term  used  in  German  psychia- 
try to  denote  the  improvements  that  often  come  about  with 
insane  patients  merely  as  the  result  of  their  being  transferred 
from  one  locality,  or  part  of  the  asylum,  to  another.  Transl.) 


288  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

every  new  chief  he  expected  that  his  virtues  would 
at  last  be  recognised,  and  with  each  he  believed  that 
he  could  remark  unequivocal  signs  of  special  esteem 
for  his  capacities  and  of  great  liking  for  him;  but 
soon  enough  it  would  turn  out  that  the  new  chief  was 
no  better  than  the  previous  ones.  To  be  sure,  these 
previous  ones  had  without  doubt  denounced  him  to 
the  new  chief;  the  whole  lot  of  them  hung  together, 
etc.  It  went  just  as  badly  with  him  in  his  literary 
activity.  Those  writers  who  were  already  recognised 
constituted  themselves — so  he  told  me — into  a  com- 
munity of  mutual  interests,  a  "maffia,"  which  kept 
back  young  talents.  And  yet,  according  to  him,  his 
works  were  fit  to  stand  beside  the  most  renowned  ones 
in  the  literature  of  the  world. 

As  regards  sexuality  his  wants  always  seemed  to  be 
slight.  He  had  sometimes  noticed  that  he  was  inex- 
plicably fortunate  with  women,  he  pleased  them  all 
without  bothering  himself  much  about  them,  he  had 
to  take  great  care  of  himself  in  regard  to  them,  etc., 
(*.  e.  in  addition  to  the  delusions  of  persecution  and 
grandeur  he  also  produced  those  of  erotomania). 

From  communications  made  from  time  to  time,  the 
deeper  layers  also  of  his  mental  existence  became 
known  to  me.  He  lived  in  poor  circumstances,  a  fact 
that  led  to  an  early  estrangement  with  his  father, 
whom  to  begin  with  he  had  tenderly  loved;  he  then 
transferred  (in  his  phantasy)  the  father-part  to  an 
uncle,  who  had  had  considerable  success  in  literary 


Observations  on  Paranoia  and  Paraphrenia       289 

renown  and  in  social  rank,  but  he  was  soon  obliged 
to  see  that  he  had  nothing  to  expect  from  this  egoist, 
so  withdrew  his  love  from  him  also  and  made — as  we 
saw — on  the  one  hand  vain  attempts  to  find  again  the 
lost  father-imago  in  his  superiors,  while  on  the  other 
hand  he  withdrew  his  sexual  hunger  in  a  narcissistic 
way  on  to  himself,  and  took  delight  in  his  own  dis- 
tinguished attributes  and  achievements. 

About  the  twelfth  year  of  our  acquaintanceship, 
however,  there  came  a  break.  In  an  over-intense  in- 
dignation at  a  supposed  piece  of  bad  treatment  he  at- 
tacked his  highest  superior  at  the  office  (physically). 
This  led  to  a  tedious  and  painful  investigation,  which 
ended  relatively  favourably ;  the  patient  was  declared 
to  be  "ill  with  his  nerves"  and  was  retired  with  a 
pension.  At  about  the  same  time  as  this — perhaps 
rather  earlier,  but  especially  after  his  dismissal  from 
his  post — he  began  to  take  an  extensive  interest  in 
psycho-analytical  literature.4  He  read  among  other 
things  my  essay  on  the  connection  between  paranoia 
and  homosexuality.  He  put  the  question  directly  to 
me,  whether  I  considered  him  to  be  a  paranoiac  and 
homosexual,  and  made  very  merry  at  the  idea  in  a 
patronising  way.  Still  the  idea  seemed  to  have  taken 
root  in  him,  and  to  have  flourished  alongside  his  pre- 
vailing inactivity  in  other  directions,  for  one  day 
he  came  to  me,  very  excited  and  enthusiastic,  saying 

4  As  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  quite  without  prospects  I  did  not 
want  him  to  go  through  an  analysis. 


290          Contribution*  to  L'syclio- Analysis 

that  on  thinking  it  over  he  had  to  agree  with  my 
opinion  (  !)  ;  he  used  really  to  suffer  from  delusions 
of  persecution ;  it  had  come  over  him  like  an  illumina- 
tion that  deep  down  inside  he  was  a  homosexual; 
he  recollected  various  incidents  that  directly  con- 
firmed this,  in  his  opinion.  Now,  so  he  said,  he  was 
able  to  explain  the  curious  sensations — half  fearful, 
half  libidinous — that  he  always  experienced  in  the 
presence  of  an  older  friend  or  patron;  he  also  un- 
derstood now  why  he  had  the  tendency  to  come  so 
near  to  me  physically  that  he  could  feel  my  breath 
in  his  face.5  He  now  knew,  further,  why  he  accused 
certain  patrons  of  having  homosexual  intentions  in 
regard  to  him;  it  was  simply  that  the  wish  was 
father  to  the  thought. 

I  was  very  pleased  at  this  turn,  not  only  out  of 
consideration  for  the  patient's  welfare,  but  also  be- 
cause the  case  supported  my  secret  hope  that  per- 
haps after  all  the  outlook  for  the  treatment  of  para- 
noia in  general  might  not  be  quite  so  desperate  as  it 
has  seemed. 

A  few  days  later  the  patient  came  back  again.  He 
was  still  excited,  but  no  longer  so  euphoric.  He  was 
very  afraid,  he  told  me;  the  homosexual  phantasies 
that  swept  over  him  were  more  and  more  intolerable ; 
he  saw  large  phalli  in  front  of  him,  which  disgusted 

1  This  peculiarity  of  his  I  had  already  noticed  in  fact  and  had 
interpreted  in  the  sense  of  transferred  erotism;  naturally  I  had 
taken  care  not  to  call  his  attention  to  it  nor  to  explain  the 
symptom  to  him. 


Observations  on  Paranoia  and  Paraphrenia     291 

him;  he  kept  fancying  paederastic  situations  with 
other  men  (also  with  myself).  I  tried — successfully 
— to  calm  him,  telling  him  that  it  was  only  because 
of  their  unaccustomed  nature  that  these  phantasies 
had  such  an  effect  on  him,  and  that  later  on  he 
would  certainly  not  have  so  much  to  suffer  from  the 
ideas. 

Then  for  a  few  days  I  heard  nothing  of  him,  until 
one  of  the  members  of  his  family  called  to  tell  me 
that  the  patient,  who  for  the  past  two  or  three  days 
had  been  inaccessible,  had  hallucinations,  kept  talk- 
ing to  himself,  and  had  broken  into  his  uncle's  house 
the  day  before,  and  then  into  a  magnate's  palace, 
where  he  created  a  disturbance.  Ejected  from  here, 
he  went  home,  and  lay  in  bed  refusing  to  speak  a 
word;  every  now  and  then,  however,  he  was  quite 
clear  and  assured  them  that  there  was  nothing  wrong 
with  him  and  that  he  was  not  to  be  transported  to 
an  asylum. 

I  visited  the  patient  and  found  him  in  a  deep  cata- 
tonic state  (rigid  posture,  negativism,  inaccessibil- 
ity, hallucinations).  When  I  came  in  he  appeared  to 
recognise  me  and  shook  hands,  but  immediately  after 
he  fell  back  into  the  catatonic  stupor.  It  took  weeks 
before  he  gradually  improved  a  little  in  the  asylum 
where  he  was  confined,  and  months  before  he  could  be 
discharged  from  there — improved.  When  I  saw  him 
again  he  did  not  have  complete  insight  into  his  path- 
ological state — he  objectified  some  of  his  feelings  of 


292  Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

being  aggrieved,  and  a  part  of  the  old  paranoiac  de- 
lusional formation  was  again  active;  on  the  other 
hand,  he  fled  terrified  from  homosexual  thoughts,  de- 
nied that  he  was  suffering  from  a  psychosis,  and  no 
longer  believed  in  the  casual  connection  between  his 
psychical  experiences  and  homosexuality.  Naturally 
I  did  not  try  to  penetrate  further  into  his  mind,  nor 
to  restore  his  previous  convictions.  From  now  on 
the  patient  avoided  me  in  a  striking  manner ;  I  gath- 
ered later  that  he  had  to  be  confined  again  because 
of  a  recurrence  of  his  excitement,  this  time  for  a 
somewhat  shorter  period. 

What  is  common  to  the  two  cases  here  communi- 
cated (apart  from  the  latent  homosexuality  demon- 
strable in  every  case  of  paranoia  and  paraphrenia,  a 
matter  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  in  more  detail  at 
this  point)6  is  that  they  both  throw  an  interesting 
light  on  the  part  played  in  paranoia  by  the  forma- 
tion of  delusional  systems.  The  patient  A.  became  ill 
in  adopting  en  bloc  a  ready-made  philosophical  sys- 
tem (Ostwald's  natural  philosophy),  instead  of  tak- 
ing the  trouble  to  construct  a  system  of  his  own. 
Philosophical  systems  that  seek  to  explain  rationally 
the  whole  order  of  the  world,  leaving  no  room  over 
for  irrationality  (*.  e.  for  what  is  not  yet  explica- 
ble), have  been,  as  is  well-known,  compared  with  the 

•  The  reader  may  be  referred  to  Freud's  work  on  the  subject 
("Ein  autobiogr.  beschr.  Fall  von  Paranoia,"  Jahrb.  d.  Psycho- 
analyse, Bd.  Ill)  and  to  my  own,  Chapter  V  of  the  present 
book. 


Observations  on  Paranoia  and  Paraphrenia     293 

paranoiac  delusional  systems.  At  all  events  such 
systems  excellently  meet  the  needs  of  paranoiacs, 
whose  symptoms  spring  from  the  impulse  to  explain 
rationally  by  the  external  order  of  the  world  their 
own  irrational  inner  strivings.  It  may  be  very 
clearly  seen  here  also  how  the  adopted  system  grad- 
ually gets  more  and  more  made  use  of  to  rationalise 
the  patient's  own  purely  egocentric,  repressed  wishes 
(doing  nothing,  incestuous  desires  in  regard  to  the 
sister). 

Case  B.  shews  again  how  fateful  it  may  be  for  the 
paranoiac  when  the  system  that  he  has  laboriously 
built  up,  and  which  allows  him  to  be  still  socially 
active,  is  suddenly  torn  from  him.  B.  succeeded  in 
projecting  all  his  ethically  incompatible  longings  on 
to  the  environment  in  his  office ;  he  became  the  victim 
of  a  systematic  persecution.  Dismissed  from  his 
post,  he  had,  so  to  speak,  been  robbed  of  his  system ; 
by  chance  he  came  across  the  psycho-analytical  lit- 
erature just  at  this  time  of  the  loss  of  his  system, 
and  this — although  he  had  previously  heard  some- 
thing of  it — for  the  first  time  was  able  to  appear  evi- 
dent to  him.  For  a  short  while  he  seemed  inclined 
to  exchange  his  persecution  system  for  what  in  our 
opinion  would  be  correct  insight  into  his  true  per- 
sonality, and  to  make  friends  with  his  own  repressed 
complexes.  But  it  soon  became  plain  that  this  in- 
sight was  unendurable  to  him,  so  that — since  he  had 
no  other  suitable  system  at  his  disposal,  and  since 


294          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

this  made  it  possible  for  him  to  anchor  at  a  second 
neurotic  point  of  fixation  7 — he  had  to  flee  from  the 
turmoil  of  morbid  dread  into  dementia.  He  recov- 
ered from  the  paraphrenic  attack  only  in  so  far  as  it 
was  possible  for  him  to  do  away  once  more  with  the 
psycho-analytical  insight,  and  to  reconstruct  the 
persecution  system. 

The  close  relations,  such  as  these,  between  system- 
formation  and  paranoia  perhaps  also  explain  the 
fact  that  there  is  always  a  large  crowd  of  psycho- 
pathic hangers-on  in  the  train  of  new  scientific  (e.  g. 
physical  and  philosophical)  systems,  discoveries,  and 
theories.  In  the  therapeutic  respect  Case  B.  cau- 
tions us  to  uphold  Freud's  pessimistic  opinion  as  to 
the  psycho-analytic  treatment  of  paranoia.8 

The  peculiar  catatonic  posture  of  patient  A.  (ly- 
ing with  upraised  leg)  deserves,  in  my  opinion,  spe- 
cial attention.  The  patient  made  the  interpretation 
of  this  symptom  easy  by  transferring  to  the  sister 
the  task  of  holding  the  leg,  and  by  soon  after  ap- 
proaching her  with  incestuous  proposals.  When  we 
take  into  consideration  the  long  known  symbolic  iden- 
tification of  leg  and  penis,  we  may  regard  this  cata- 

1  (Referring  to  the  fixation-point  of  paranoia  at  the  nar- 
cissistic-homosexual stage  of  infancy,  that  of  paraphrenia  [de- 
mentia praecox]  at  the  still  earlier  one  of  auto-erotism. 
Transl.) 

•In  contrast  with  Bjerre,  who  says  he  has  cured  a  case  of 
paranoia  by  analysis  (Jahrb.  d.  Psychoanalyse,  Bd.  II).  This 
case  of  Bjerre's  was  in  my  opinion,  and  Freud's,  not  a  true 
paranoia. 


Observations  on  Paranoia  and  Paraphrenia     295 

tonic  posture  as  a  means  of  expression  (and  at  the 
same  time  a  defensive  measure)  of  repressed  erection- 
tendencies.  It  is  thinkable  that  the  collection  of  sim- 
ilar observations  will  explain  in  this  sense  catatonic 
rigidity  in  general:  In  support  of  this  idea  I  can 
bring  forward  a  third  case. 

Ill 

A  paraphrenic  who  had  an  uncommonly  keen  ca- 
pacity for  self-observation  spontaneously  explained 
to  me  that  with  all  his  curious  catatonic  postures 
and  movements  he  was  seeking  to  defend  himself  from 
erotic  sensations  in  the  various  parts  of  the  body 
concerned.  The  extreme  bowing  forwards  of  the 
body  that  he  kept  up  for  minutes  at  a  time  served, 
for  instance,  "to  break  the  erection  of  the  intestine." 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    NOSOLOGY    OF    MALE    HOMOSEXUALITY    (HOMO- 
EROTISM)  l 

WHAT  we  have  learned  about  homosexuality 
through  psycho-analysis  may  be  put  to- 
gether in  a  few  sentences.  The  first  and  most  impor- 
tant step  towards  a  deeper  knowledge  of  this  instinct- 
aim  was  the  supposition  by  Fliess  and  Freud  2  that 
really  every  human  being  traverses  a  psychically  bi- 
sexual stage  in  his  childhood.3  The  "homosexual 
component"  falls  later  a  victim  to  repression;  only 
a  minor  part  of  this  component  gets  rescued  in  a 
sublimated  form  in  the  cultivated  life  of  adults,  in 
playing,  in  readiness  for  social  help,  in  friendship 
leagues,  in  club  life,  etc.,  a  part  that  is  not  to  be 
underestimated.  Insufficiently  repressed  homosexu- 

1  Delivered  at  the  Third  Congress  of  the  Internat.  Psycho- 
Analytical  Association  at  Weimar,  October  1911;  Published  in 
the  Internat.  Zeitschr.  f.  a'rztl.  Psychoanalyse,  1914. 

*  Freud,  Drei  Abhandlungen  zur  Sexualtheorie. 

*  On  a  previous  occasion  I  proposed  the  use  of  the  expression 
"ambisexual"  instead  of  that  of  "bisexual,"  it  being  thereby 
expressed  that  the  child  in  certain  stage  of  development  feels 
amphi-erotically,  t.  e.  can  transfer  his  sexual  hunger  to  man 
and  woman   (father  and  mother)   at  the  same  time.     In  this 
way  the  contrast  between  Freud's  conception  and  Fliess'  the- 
ory of  biological  bisexuality  would  be  clearly  brought  out. 

296 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality      297 

ality  can  later,  under  certain  circumstances,  become 
once  more  manifest,  or  express  itself  in  neurotic 
symptoms ;  this  is  especially  the  case  with  paranoia, 
concerning  which  the  more  recent  investigations  have 
been  able  to  establish  that  it  is  really  to  be  conceived 
as  a  disguised  manifestation  of  the  inclination  to- 
wards the  person's  own  sex.4 

A  newer  point  of  view,  which  renders  more  easy  the 
understanding  of  homosexuality,  we  owe  to  Sadger 
and  Freud.  Sadger  discovered  in  the  psycho-analy- 
sis of  several  male  homosexuals  that  intense  hetero- 
sexual inclinations  had  been  displayed  in  their  early 
childhood ;  indeed  that  their  "Oedipus  complex" 
(love  for  the  mother,  attitude  of  hate  towards  the 
father)  had  come  to  expression  in  a  specially  pro- 
nounced manner.  He  considered  that  the  homosex- 
uality which  later  develops  in  them  is  really  only  an 
attempt  to  restore  the  original  relation  to  the 
mother.  In  the  homosexual  pleasure-objects  of  his 
desires  the  homosexual  is  unconsciously  loving  him- 
self, while  he  himself  (also  unconsciously)  is  repre- 
senting the  feminine  and  effeminate  part  of  the 
mother. 

This  loving  of  oneself  in  the  person  of  another  hu- 
man being  Sadger  called  Narcissism.5  Freud  has 
shewn  us  that  narcissism  possesses  a  much  greater 
and  more  general  significance  than  had  been  thought, 

4  Freud,  Jahrb.  d.  Psychoanalyse,  Bd.  Ill;  Ferenczi,  Ch.  V 
of  the  present  book. 

*  (Or,  rather,  borrowed  the  term  from  Naecke.    Transl.) 


298          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

and  that  every  human  being  has  to  pass  through  a 
narcissistic  stage  of  development.  After  the  stage 
of  "polymorphous-perverse"  auto-erotism,  and  be- 
fore the  real  choice  of  an  external  love-object  takes 
place,  every  human  being  adopts  himself  as  an  ob- 
ject of  love,  in  that  he  collects  the  previously  autistic 
erotisms  together  into  a  unity,  the  "darling  ego." 
Homosexuals  are  only  more  strongly  fixed  than  other 
people  in  this  narcissistic  stage;  the  genital  organ 
similar  to  their  own  remains  throughout  life  an  es- 
sential condition  for  their  love. 

All  these  pieces  of  knowledge,  however,  important 
as  they  are  in  themselves,  give  no  explanation  of  the 
peculiarities  of  the  sexual  constitution  and  the  spe- 
cial experiences  that  lie  at  the  base  of  manifest 
homosexuality. 

I  may  say  at  once  that,  in  spite  of  much  puzzling 
over  them,  I  have  not  succeeded  in  solving  these  ques- 
tions. The  aim  of  this  communication  is  nothing 
more  than  to  bring  forward  some  facts  of  experience 
and  points  of  view  that  have  spontaneously  forced 
themselves  on  me  in  the  course  of  many  years*  psy- 
cho-analytic observation  of  homosexuals,  and  which 
may  be  capable  of  rendering  easier  the  correct  noso- 
logical  classification  of  homosexual  clinical  pictures. 

It  seemed  to  me  from  the  beginning  that  the  des- 
ignation "homosexuality"  was  nowadays  applied  to 
dissimilar  and  unrelated  psychical  abnormalities. 
Sexual  relations  with  members  of  a  person's  own 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality     299 

sex  are  only  a  symptom,  and  this  symptom  may  be 
the  form  in  which  the  most  diverse  psychical  disor- 
ders and  disturbances  of  development,  as  well  as 
normal  life,  appear.  It  was  thus  a  priori  improba- 
ble that  everything  to  which  the  name  "homosexu- 
ality" is  now  applied  would  in  a  simple  way  yield  it- 
self as  a  clinical  unity.  The  two  types  of  homosex- 
uality, for  example,  distinguished  as  "active"  and 
"passive"  have  been  up  to  the  present  conceived  as 
obviously  two  forms  in  which  the  same  condition  may 
appear;  in  both  cases  one  spoke  of  "inversion"  of 
the  sexual  instinct,  of  "contrary"  sexual  sensation, 
of  "perversion,"  and  overlooked  the  possibility  that 
in  this  way  one  might  be  confounding  two  essentially 
different  morbid  states  merely  because  a  striking 
symptom  is  common  to  both.  Yet  even  superficial 
observation  of  these  two  kinds  of  homo-erotism 6 
shews  that  they  belong — in  the  pure  cases,  at  all 
events, — to  quite  different  syndromes,  and  that  the 
"acting"  and  the  "suffering"  homo-erotics  represent 
fundamentally  different  types  of  men.  Only  the 
passive  homo-erotic  deserves  to  be  called  "inverted," 
only  in  his  case  does  one  see  real  reversal  of  normal 
psychical — and  perhaps  also  bodily — characteris- 
tics, only  he  is  a  true  "intermediate  stage."  A  man 

•  The  word  comes  from  Karsch-Haack  (Das  gleichgeschlecht- 
liche  Leben  der  Naturvolker,  1911)  and  is  in  my  opinion  pre- 
ferable to  the  ambiguous  expression  homosexuality,  since  it 
makes  prominent  the  psychical  aspect  of  the  impulse  in  con- 
tradistinction to  the  biological-  term  "sexuality." 


300          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

who  in  intercourse  with  men  feels  himself  to  be  a 
woman  is  inverted  in  respect  to  his  own  ego  (homo- 
erotism  through  subject-inversion,  or,  more  shortly, 
"subject-homo-erotism")  ;  he  feels  himself  to  be  a 
woman,  and  this  not  only  in  genital  intercourse,  but 
in  all  relations  of  life. 

It  is  quite  otherwise  with  the  true  "active  homo- 
sexual." He  feels  himself  a  man  in  every  respect,  is 
as  a  rule  very  energetic  and  active,  and  there  is  noth- 
ing effeminate  to  be  discovered  in  his  bodily  or  men- 
tal organisation.  The  object  of  his  inclination  alone 
is  exchanged,  so  that  one  might  call  him  a  homo- 
erotic  through  exchange  of  the  love-object,  or,  more 
shortly,  an  object-homo-erotic. 

A  further  striking  difference  between  the  "sub- 
jective" and  the  "objective"  homo-erotic  consists  in 
the  fact  that  the  former  (the  invert)  feels  himself 
attracted  by  more  mature,  powerful  men,  and  is  on 
friendly  terms,  as  a  colleague,  one  might  almost  say, 
with  women ;  the  second  type,  on  the  contrary,  is  al- 
most exclusively  interested  in  young,  delicate  boys 
with  an  effeminate  appearance,  but  meets  a  woman 
with  pronounced  antipathy,  and  not  rarely  with  ha- 
tred that  is  badly,  or  not  at  all,  concealed.  The 
true  invert  is  hardly  ever  impelled  to  seek  medical 
advice,  he  feels  at  complete  ease  in  the  passive  role, 
and  has  no  other  wish  than  that  people  should  put 
up  with  his  peculiarity  and  not  interfere  with  the 
kind  of  satisfaction  that  suits  him.  Not  having  to 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality     301 

fight  with  any  inner  conflicts,  he  can  sustain  fortu- 
nate love-relationships  for  years,  and  really  fears 
nothing  except  external  danger  and  being  shamed. 
With  all  this  his  love  is  feminine  to  the  finest  de- 
tails. He  lacks  the  sexual  overestimation,  which  ac- 
cording to  Freud  characterises  a  man's  love;  he  is 
not  very  passionate,  and,  as  a  true  Narcissus,  chiefly 
demands  from  his  lover  the  recognition  of  his  bodily 
and  other  merits. 

The  object-homo-erotic,  on  the  other  hand,  is  un- 
commonly tormented  by  the  consciousness  of  his  ab- 
normality ;  sexual  intercourse  never  completely  satis- 
fies him,  he  is  tortured  by  qualms  of  conscience,  and 
overestimates  his  sexual  object  to  the  uttermost. 
That  he  is  plagued  with  conflicts  and  never  comes  to 
terms  with  his  condition  is  shewn  by  his  repeated  at- 
tempts to  obtain  medical  help  for  his  trouble.  It  is 
true  that  he  often  changes  his  companions  in  love, 
not  from  superficiality,  however,  as  the  invert  does, 
but  in  consequence  of  painful  disappointments  and 
of  the  insatiable  and  unsuccessful  pursuit  of  the  love- 
ideal  ("formation  of  series,"  as  Freud  calls  it). 

It  may  happen  that  two  homo-erotics  of  different 
types  unite  to  make  a  pair.  The  invert  finds  in  the 
object-homo-erotic  a  quite  suitable  lover,  who  adores 
him,  supports  him  in  material  affairs,  and  is  impos- 
ing and  energetic;  the  man  of  the  objective  type,  on 
the  other  hand,  may  find  pleasure  in  just  the  mixture 
of  masculine  and  feminine  traits  present  in  the  in- 


802  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

vert.  (I  also  know  active  homo-erotics,  by  the  way, 
who  exclusively  desire  non-inverted  youths,  and  only 
content  themselves  with  inverts  in  the  absence  of  the 
former).7 

However  simply  these  two  character  pictures  of 
homo-erotism  lend  themselves  to  distinction,  they  sig- 
nify no  more  than  a  superficial  description  of  syn- 
dromes so  long  as  they  are  not  submitted  to  the  re- 
solving procedure  of  psycho-analysis,  which  alone 
can  render  their  mode  of  origin  psychologically  com- 
prehensible. 

Now  I  have  had  the  opportunity  of  treating  psy- 
cho-analytically  a  number  of  male  homo-erotics; 
•many  for  only  a  short  period  (a  few  weeks),  others 
for  months,  a  whole  year,  and  even  longer.  Rather 
than  narrate  any  anamneses  in  this  summary,  it 
seems  to  me  more  instructive  to  condense  my  impres- 
sions and  experiences  on  homo-erotism  into  two  psy- 
cho-analytical Galton  photographs.8 

I  may  at  once  forestall  the  final  result  of  my  in- 

1 1  am  conscious  that,  when  I  call  inverts  "female"  and  ob- 
ject-homo-erotics "male,"  I  am  using  terms  the  scope  of  which 
is  not  sufficiently  sharply  defined.  It  may  be  just  indicated 
here  that  by  maleness  I  understand  activity  (aggressivity)  of 
the  sexual  hunger,  highly  developed  object-love  with  over- 
estimation  of  the  object,  a  polygamy  that  is  in  only  apparent 
contrast  with  the  latter  trait,  and,  as  a  distant  derivative  of 
the  activity,  intellectual  talent;  by  femaleness  I  understand 
passivity  (tendency  to  repression),  narcissism  and  intuitiveness. 
The  psychical  attributes  of  sex  are,  of  course,  mingled  in  every 
individual — although  in  unequal  proportion.  (Ambisexuality.) 

1 A  further  motive  for  this  is  consideration  for  the  patients' 
anonymity,  which  it  is  especially  important  to  preserve. 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality       303 

vestigations :  Psycho-analysis  shewed  me  that  the 
subject-  and  object-homo-erotism  are  really  essen- 
tially different  conditions.  The  former  is  a  true 
"sexual  intermediate  stage"  (in  the  sense  of  Magnus 
Hirschfeld  and  his  followers),  thus  a  pure  develop- 
mental anomaly;  object-homo-erotism,  however,  is  a 
neurosis,  an  obsessional  neurosis. 

In  both  types  of  amphi-erotism  9  the  deepest  lay- 
ers of  the  mind  and  the  oldest  memory-traces  still 
bear  testimony  to  the  investment  of  both  sexes,  or 
the  relationship  to  both  parents,  with  sexual  hunger. 
In  the  subsequent  development,  however,  inversion 
and  object-homo-erotism  diverge  far  from  each 
other. 

We  can  dig  down  very  deeply  into  the  early  his- 
tory of  the  subject-homo-erotic  and  find  already 
everywhere  signs  of  his  inversion,  namely,  the  abnor- 
mal effeminate  being.  When  merely  a  quite  young 
child  he  imagined  himself  in  the  situation  of  his 
mother  and  not  in  that  of  his  father ;  he  even  brings 
about  an  inverted  Oedipus  complex ;  he  wishes  for  his 
mother's  death  so  as  to  take  her  place  with  the  fa- 
ther and  be  able  to  enjoy  all  her  rights;  he  longs  for 
her  clothes,  her  jewelry,  and  of  course  also  her 
beauty  and  the  tenderness  shewn  to  her;  he  dreams 
of  begetting  children,  plays  with  dolls,  and  is  fond  of 


'  This  word  renders,  I  believe,  the  psychological  character  of 
what  is  intended  better  than  the  term  "ambisexuality,"  pre- 
viously suggested  by  me. 


304  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

dressing  up  as  a  girl.  He  is  jealous  of  his  mother, 
claims  for  himself  all  his  father's  tenderness,  where- 
as his  mother  he  rather  admires  as  something  envi- 
ably beautiful.  In  many  cases  it  is  plainly  to  be 
seen  that  the  tendency  to  inversion,  which  is  prob- 
ably always  constitutionally  conditioned,  is  strength- 
ened by  external  influences  as  well.  "Only  children" 
who  are  spoilt,  little  favourites  who  grow  up  in  an 
exclusively  feminine  environment,  boys  who,  because 
they  made  their  appearance  in  the  place  of  the  girl 
that  was  longed  for,  are  brought  up  in  a  girlish  way, 
can  sooner  become  inverted,  given  the  corresponding 
predisposition  in  their  sexual  character.10 

On  the  other  hand,  the  narcissistic  nature  of  a  boy 
can  provoke  excessive  indulgence  on  the  parents' 
part,  and  so  lead  to  a  vicious  circle.  Bodily  attri- 
butes also — girlish  figure  and  features,  a  wealth  of 
hair,  and  so  on — may  contribute  to  the  consumma- 
tion of  a  boy  being  treated  as  a  girl.  In  this  way 
the  father's  preference  and  its  response  may  have 

"Among  boys  who  grow  up  without  a  father  homo-erotics 
are  to  be  found  relatively  often.  I  imagine  that  the  fixation 
on  the  Imago  of  the  father  who  was  lost  early  or  never  known 
results,  at  least  in  part,  from  the  fact  that  under  such  cir- 
cumstances the  otherwise  unavoidable  conflict  between  father 
and  son  is  absent.  ("A  man  always  credits  fate  twice  as 
highly  for  something  that  is  lacking  as  for  something  that  he 
really  possesses;  thus  my  mother's  long  accounts  filled  me  with 
more  and  more  longing  for  my  father,  whom  -I  no  longer 
knew."  G.  Keller,  "Der  griine  Heinrich,"  Cap.  II.)  In  fam- 
ilies where  the  father  is  alive,  but  is  inferior  or  insignificant, 
the  son  longs  exceedingly  for  a  "strong"  man  and  remains  in- 
clined to  inversion. 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality      305 

arisen  altogether  as  a  secondary  process  in  relation 
to  the  child's  narcissism;  I  know  cases  in  which  a 
narcissistic  boy  provoked  the  father's  latent  homo- 
erotism  in  the  form  of  excessive  tenderness,  the  latter 
then  contributing  not  a  little  to  the  fixation  of  the 
former's  own  inversion. 

Nor  can  psycho-analysis  tell  us  anything  new  con- 
cerning the  subsequent  fate  of  these  boys ;  they  stay 
fixed  in  this  early  stage  of  development,  and  become 
finally  such  personalities  as  we  know  well  enough 
from  the  autobiographies  of  urnings.  I  can  here  lay 
stress  on  only  a  few  points.  Coprophilia  and  pleas- 
ure in  smell  are  deeply  repressed  with  them,  often  to 
the  extent  of  aestheticism ;  there  is  a  fondness  for 
perfumes,  and  as  a  sublimation  an  enthusiasm  for 
art.  Characteristic,  further,  is  their  idiosyncrasy 
against  blood  and  all  bloody  things.  They  are  most- 
ly very  suggestible  and  can  easily  be  hypnotised; 
they  are  fond  of  imputing  their  first  seduction  to  the 
"suggestion"  of  a  man  who  stared  hard  at  them  or 
otherwise  pursued  them.  Behind  this  suggestion 
there  lurks,  of  course,  their  own  trauriatophilia. 

Since  analysis  of  inverts  does  not  really  elicit  any 
affects  that  might  result  in  changing  his  previous 
attitude  towards  the  male  sex,  inversion  (subject- 
homo-erotism)  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  condition  in- 
curable by  analysis  (or  by  any  kind  of  psycho- 
therapy at  all).  Psycho-analysis  does  not  remain, 
however,  without  any  influence  on  the  patient's  beha- 


306          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

viour;  it  removes  any  neurotic  symptoms  that  may 
accompany  the  inversion,  especially  the  morbid  anx- 
iety, which  is  often  by  no  means  slight.  The  invert 
acknowledges  his  homo-erotism  more  frankly  after 
the  analysis  than  before.  It  must  further  be  re- 
marked that  many  inverts  are  by  no  means  quite 
insusceptible  to  the  endearments  of  the  female  sex. 
It  is  through  intercourse  with  woman  (t.  e.  their 
like)  that  they  dispose  of  what  may  be  called  the 
homosexual  component  of  their  sexuality. 

How  differently  does  the  picture  of  object-homo- 
erotism  present  itself  even  after  only  a  superficial 
analysis.  After  the  very  shortest  examination  those 
suffering  from  it  prove  to  be  typical  obsessional  pa- 
tients. They  swarm  with  obsessions,  and  with  obses- 
sional procedures  and  ceremonies  to  guard  against 
them.  A  more  penetrating  dissection  finds  behind 
the  compulsion  the  torturing  doubt,  as  well  as  that 
lack  of  balance  in  love  and  hate  which  Freud  discov- 
ered to  be  the  basis  of  the  obsessional  mechanisms. 
The  psycho-analysis  of  such  homo-erotics  as  only 
feel  abnormally  in  reference  to  their  love-object,  and 
are  otherwise  of  a  purely  masculine  type,  has  shewn 
me  plainly  that  this  kind  of  homo-erotism  in  all  its 
phenomena  is  itself  nothing  else  than  a  series  of  ob- 
sessive feelings  and  actions.  Sexuality  in  general  is 
obsessive  enough,  but,  according  to  my  experience, 
object-homo-erotism  is  a  true  neurotic  compulsion, 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality      307 

with  logically  irreversible  substitution  of  normal  sex- 
ual aims  and  actions  by  abnormal  ones. 

The  average  (analytically  investigated)  early  his- 
tory of  homo-erotics  of  the  masculine  type  is  some- 
what as  follows: 

They  were  all  very  precocious  sexually,  and  het- 
ero-sexually  aggressive  (thus  confirming  Sadger's 
finding).  Their  Oedipus  phantasies  were  always 
"normal,"  culminating  in  sexual-sadistic  plans  of  as- 
sault on  the  mother  (or  her  representative)  and 
cruel  death-wishes  against  the  disturbing  father. 
Further,  they  were  all  intellectually  precocious,  and 
in  their  impulse  for  knowledge  created  a  number  of 
infantile  sexual  theories ;  this  forms  also  the  founda- 
tion of  their  later  obsessional  thinking.  Apart  from 
aggressivity  and  intellectuality  their  constitution  is 
characterised  by  unusually  strong  anal-erotism  and, 
coprophilia.11  In  the  earliest  childhood  they  had 
been  severely  punished  by  one  of  the  parents  12  for  a 

u  The  view  defended  in  this  essay,  that  object-homo-erotism 
is  an  obsessional  neurosis,  was  strengthened  when  Freud,  in  his 
work  on  "Die  Disposition  zur  Zwangsneurose,"  (this  Zeit- 
schrift,  Jahrg.  I,  Heft  6)  announced  that  the  constitutional 
basis  of  this  neurosis  is  the  fixation  on  a  pregenital,  sadistic- 
anal-erotic  stage  in  the  development  of  the  sexual  hunger.  It 
was  precisely  sadism  and  anal-erotism  that  I  found  at  the  basis 
also  of  object-homo-erotism,  a  fact  that  speaks  decidedly  in 
favour  of  the  inherent  connection  of  these  morbid  states.  See 
also  Ernest  Jones,  "Hass  und  Analerotik  in  der  Zwangsneu- 
rose," (this  Zeitschrift,  Jahrg.  I,  Heft  5). 

11  It  struck  me  how  often  it  was  the  mother  who  administered 
these  reprovals  to  later  homo-erotics,  but  I  attached  no  special 
significance  to  this  circumstance  until  Professor  Freud  called 
my  attention  to  the  importance  of  this  very  factor. 


308          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

hetero-erotic  delinquency  (touching  a  girl  indecent- 
ly, infantile  attempt  at  coitus),  and  on  such  an  oc- 
casion (which  was  often  repeated)  had  to  suppress 
an  outburst  of  intense  rage.  Following  on  this  they 
became  especially  docile  in  the  latency  period  (which 
set  in  early),  avoided  the  society  of  girls  and  women 
half  obstinately,  half  anxiously,  and  consorted  ex- 
clusively with  their  friends.  In  one  of  my  patients 
there  occurred  several  times  "irruptions"  of  homo- 
erotic  affection  in  the  latency  period ;  in  another  the 
latency  was  disturbed  through  overhearing  parental 
intercourse,  after  which  the  previous  good  conduct 
was  interrupted  by  a  transitory  period  of  naughti- 
ness (revenge  phantasies).  When  the  sexual  hunger 
increases  at  the  time  of  puberty  the  homo-erotic's 
inclinations  again  turn  at  first  towards  the  opposite 
sex,  but  the  slightest  reproval  or  warning  on  the 
part  of  someone  they  respect  is  enough  to  re-awaken 
the  dread  of  women,  whereupon  there  takes  place, 
either  immediately  or  shortly  after,  a  final  flight 
from  the  female  to  his  own  sex.  One  patient  when 
he  was  fifteen  fell  in  love  with  an  actress  about 
whose  morality  his  mother  passed  some  not  quite 
flattering  remarks ;  since  then  he  has  never  ap- 
proached a  woman  and  feels  himself  impulsively 
drawn  to  young  men.  In  the  case  of  another  pa- 
tient puberty  set  in  with  an  absolute  frenzy  of  het- 
erosexuality ;  he  had  to  have  sexual  intercourse  every 
day  for  a  year,  and  obtained  the  money  for  it,  if 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality     309 

necessary,  in  dishonourable  ways.  When  he  made 
the  house  servant  pregnant,  however,  and  was  called 
to  account  for  it  by  his  father  and  vilified  by  his 
mother,  he  applied  himself  with  the  same  ardour  to 
the  cult  of  the  male  sex,  from  which  no  effort  has 
been  able  to  wean  him  ever  since. 

In  the  transference-relation  to  the  physician  ob- 
ject-homo-erotics recapitulate  the  genesis  of  their 
trouble.  If  the  transference  is  a  positive  one  from 
the  beginning  then  unexpected  "cures"  come  about 
even  after  a  short  treatment;  on  the  slightest  con- 
flict, however,  the  patient  relapses  into  his  homo- 
erotism,  and  only  now,  on  the  setting  in  of  resistance, 
does  the  real  analysis  begin.  If  the  transference  is 
negative  from  the  outset,  as  it  is  especially  apt  to 
be  with  patients  who  come  to  the  treatment  not  on 
their  own  accord,  but  at  their  parents'  bidding,  then 
it  takes  a  long  time  to  reach  any  real  analytic  work, 
the  patient  wasting  the  hour  with  boastful  and  scorn- 
ful narrations  of  his  homo-erotic  adventures. 

In  the  object-homo-erotic's  unconscious  phantasy 
the  physician  can  represent  the  place  of  man  and 
woman,  father  and  mother,  reversals  13  of  the  most 
diverse  kind  playing  a  very  important  part  in  this. 

11  The  dreams  of  homo-erotics  are  very  rich  in  reversals. 
Whole  series  of  dreams  have  often  to  be  read  backwards.  The 
symptomatic  action  of  making  a  slip  of  the  tongue  or  pen  in 
the  use  of  the  gender  of  articles  is  common.  One  patient  even 
made  up  a  bisexual  number:  the  number  101  signified,  as  the 
context  shewed,  that  for  him  "backwards  and  forwards  were 
the  same." 


810  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

It  turns  out  that  an  object-homo-erotic  knows  how 
to  love  the  woman  in  a  man;  the  posterior  half  of 
man's  body  can  signify  for  him  the  anterior  half  of 
a  woman's,  the  scapulae  or  nates  assuming  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  woman's  breasts.  It  was  these  cases 
that  shewed  me  with  especial  plainness  that  this  kind 
of  homo-erotism  is  only  a  substitution  product  of  the 
hetero-erotic  sexual  hunger.  At  the  same  time  the 
active  homo-erotic  satisfies  in  this  way  also  his  sadis- 
tic and  anal-erotic  impulses ;  this  holds  good  not  only 
for  the  real  paederasts,  but  also  for  the  over-refined 
boy  lovers,  those  who  anxiously  shun  all  indecent 
contact  with  boys;  with  the  latter  sadism  and  anal- 
erotism  are  replaced  by  their  reaction-formations. 

In  the  light  of  psycho-analysis,  therefore,  the  ac- 
tive homo-erotic  act  appears  on  the  one  hand  as  sub- 
sequent (false)  obedience,  which — taking  the  paren- 
tal interdiction  literally — really  avoids  intercourse 
with  women,  but  indulges  the  forbidden  hetero-erotic 
desires  in  unconscious  phantasies ;  on  the  other  hand 
the  paederastic  act  serves  the  purpose  of  the  original 
Oedipus  phantasy  and  denotes  the  injuring  and  sul- 
lying of  the  man.14 

Considered  from  the  intellectual  aspect  obsession- 
al homo-erotism  proves  to  be  in  the  first  place  an 

"One  patient,  whenever  he  felt  himself  insulted  by  a  man, 
especially  by  a  superior,  had  at  once  to  seek  out  a  male  prosti- 
tute; only  in  this  way  was  he  able  to  save  himself  from  an 
outburst  of  rage.  The  supposed  "love"  for  a  man  was  here 
essentially  an  act  of  violence  and  revenge. 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality       311 

over-correction  of  the  doubt  concerning  the  love  to- 
wards the  man's  own  sex.  The  homo-erotic  obses- 
sional idea  unites  in  a  happy  compromise  the  flight 
from  women,  and  their  symbolic  replacement,  as  well 
as  the  hatred  of  men  and  the  compensation  of  this. 
Woman  being  apparently  excluded  from  the  love-life, 
there  no  longer  exists,  so  far  as  consciousness  is  con- 
cerned, any  further  bone  of  contention  between  fa- 
ther and  son. 

It  is  worth  mentioning  that  most  of  the  obsession- 
al homo-erotics  (as  this  type  might  also  be  called)  I 
have  analysed  make  use  of  the  intermediary  stage 
theory  15  of  homosexual  tendencies,  which  is  now  so 
popular,  to  represent  their  condition  as  congenital, 
and  therefore  not  to  be  altered  or  influenced,  or,  to 
use  the  expression  from  Schreber's  "Denkwiirdigkei- 
ten,"  "in  harmony  with  the  universe."  They  all  re- 
gard themselves  as  inverts,  and  are  glad  to  have 
found  a  scientific  support  for  the  justification  of 
their  obsessional  ideas  and  actions. 

I  have  naturally  also  to  say  something  here  as  to 
my  experience  concerning  the  curability  of  this  form 
of  homo-erotism.  In  the  first  place  I  observe  that  it 
has  not  yet  been  possible  (for  me,  at  all  events)  to 
cure  completely  a  severe  case  of  obsessional  homo- 
erotism.  In  a  number  of  cases,  however,  I  have  been 
able  to  record  very  far-reaching  improvement,  espe- 

M  (About  equivalent  to  what  we  call  the  "third  sex"  theory 
in  English  countries.    Transl.) 


Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

cially  in  the  following  directions:  abatement  of  the 
hostile  attitude  and  feeling  of  repugnance  towards 
women;  better  control  of  the  previously  urgent  im- 
pulse for  homo-erotic  satisfaction,  the  direction  of 
the  impulse  being  otherwise  retained;  awakening  of 
potency  towards  women,  therefore  a  kind  of  amphi- 
erotism,  which  took  the  place  of  the  previously  exclu- 
sive homo-erotism,  often  alternating  with  the  latter 
in  periodic  waves.  These  experiences  encourage  me, 
therefore,  to  expect  that  obsessional  homo-erotism 
will  be  just  as  curable  by  means  of  the  psycho-ana- 
lytic method  as  the  other  forms  of  obsessional  neu- 
rosis. In  any  case  I  imagine  that  the  fundamental 
reversion  of  an  obsessional  homo-erotism  that  has 
been  firmly  rooted  for  a  long  time  must  need  whole 
years  of  analytic  work.  (In  one  very  hopeful  case  I 
was  treating  the  cure  had  to  be  broken  off  for  ex- 
trinsic reasons  after  almost  two  years.)  Only  when 
we  have  at  our  disposal  cured  cases,  ».  e.  cases  an- 
alysed to  the  end,  will  it  be  possible  to  pass  a  final 
judgment  on  the  conditions  under  which  this  neu- 
rosis arises,  and  on  the  peculiarities  of  its  disposi- 
tional  and  accidental  factors. 

It  is  possible,  indeed  probable,  that  homo-erotism 
is  to  be  found  not  only  in  those  here  described,  but 
also  in  other  syndromes;  with  the  isolation  of  these 
two  types  I  certainly  do  not  mean  to  exhaust  all  the 
possibilities.  In  making  the  nosological  distinction 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality       313 

of  subject-  from  object-homo-erotism  I  only  wanted 
in  the  first  place  to  direct  attention  to  the  confusion 
of  ideas  that  prevails  even  in  the  scientific  literature 
on  the  homosexuality  problem.  Psycho-analytic  in- 
vestigation shews  further  that  nowadays  the  most 
heterogeneous  psychical  states  are  treated  alike  un- 
der the  title  "homosexuality;"  on  the  one  hand  true 
constitutional  anomalies  (inversion,  subject-homo- 
erotism),  on  the  other  hand  psychoneurotic  obses- 
sional states  (obsessional  or  object-homo-erotism). 
The  individual  of  the  first  kind  feels  himself  to  be  a 
woman  with  the  wish  to  be  loved  by  a  man,  the  feel- 
ing of  the  second  is  rather  neurotic  flight  from 
women  than  sympathy  towards  men. 

In  designating  object-homo-erotism  as  a  neurotic 
symptom  I  come  into  opposition  with  Freud,  who  in 
his  "Sexualtheorie"  describes  homosexuality  as  a 
perversion,  neuroses  on  the  contrary  as  the  negative 
of  perversions.  The  contradiction,  however,  is  only 
apparent.  "Perversions,"  i.  e.  tarrying  at  primitive 
or  preparatory  sexual  aims,  can  very  well  be  placed 
at  the  disposal  of  neurotic  repression  tendencies  also, 
a  part  of  true  (positive)  perversion,  neurotically 
exaggerated,  representing  at  the  same  time  the  nega- 
tive of  another  perversion.16  Now  this  is  the  case 
with  "object-homo-erotism.'*  The  homo-erotic  com- 
ponent, which  is  never  absent  even  normally,  gets 

*•  (Abraham  has  shewn  that  the  same  is  true  of  another  per- 
version: exhibitionism.  Jahrbuch  der  Psychoanalyse.  1914. 
Transl.) 


314          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analytii 

here  over-engaged  with  masses  of  affect,  which  in 
the  unconscious  relate  to  another,  repressed  perver- 
sion, namely,  a  hetero-erotism  of  such  a  strength  as 
to  be  incapable  of  becoming  conscious. 

I  believe  that  of  the  two  kinds  of  homo-erotism 
here  described  the  "objective'*  one  is  the  more  fre- 
quent and  the  more  important  socially;  it  makes  a 
large  number  of  otherwise  valuable  men  (psychoneu- 
rotically  disposed,  it  is  true)  impossible  in  society, 
and  excludes  them  from  propagation.  Further,  the 
constantly  increasing  number  of  object-homo-erotics 
is  a  social  phenomenon  the  importance  of  which  is 
not  to  be  underestimated,  and  one  that  demands  ex- 
planation. As  a  provisional  explanation  I  assume 
that  the  extension  of  object-homo-erotism  is  an  ab- 
normal reaction  to  the  disproportionately  exagger- 
ated repression  of  the  homo-erotic  instinct-compo- 
nent by  civilised  man,  i.  e.  a  failure  of  this  repres- 
sion. 

In  the  mental  life  of  primitive  peoples  (as  in  that 
of  children)  amphi-erotism  plays  a  much  greater 
part  than  in  that  of  civilised  people.  But  even  with 
certain  highly  civilised  races,  e.  g.  the  Greeks,  it 
used  to  be  not  merely  a  tolerated,  but  a  recognised 
kind  of  way  for  the  satisfaction  of  desire;  it  is  still 
so  in  the  Orient  of  today.  In  modern  European  re- 
gions of  culture,  however,  and  in  those  attached  to 
them,  not  only  is  actual  homo-erotism  lacking,  but 
also  the  sublimation  of  it  that  appeared  so  obvious 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality      815 

to  the  people  of  antiquity,  enthusiastic  and  devoted 
friendship  between  men.  It  is  in  fact  astounding  to 
what  an  extent  present-day  men  have  lost  the  ca- 
pacity for  mutual  affection  and  amiability.  Instead 
there  prevails  among  men  decided  asperity,  resist- 
ance, and  love  of  disputation.  Since  it  is  unthink- 
able that  those  tender  affects  which  were  so  strongly 
pronounced  in  childhood  could  have  disappeared 
without  leaving  a  trace,  one  has  to  regard  these 
signs  of  resistance  as  reaction-formations,  as  defence 
symptoms  erected  against  affection  for  the  same  sex. 
I  would  even  go  so  far  as  to  regard  the  barbarous 
duels  of  the  German  students  as  similarly  distorted 
proofs  of  affection  towards  members  of  their  own 
sex.  (Only  slight  traces  still  exist  today  in  a  posi- 
tive direction;  thus,  in  club  and  party  life,  in  "hero 
worship,"  in  the  preference  of  so  many  men  for  boy- 
girls  and  for  actresses  in  male  parts,  also — in  attacks 
of  cruder  erotism — in  drunkenness,  where  the  alcohol 
reverses  the  sublimations.) 

It  looks,  however,  as  if  these  rudiments  of  the  love 
for  their  own  sex  would  not  fully  compensate  the  men 
of  today  for  losing  the  love  of  friends.  A  part  of 
the  unsatisfied  homo-erotism  remains  "free  floating," 
and  demands  to  be  appeased ;  since  this  is  impossible 
under  the  conditions  of  present-day  civilisation,  this 
quantity  of  sexual  hunger  has  to  undergo  a  displace- 
ment, namely,  on  to  the  feeling-relationship  to  the 
opposite  sex.  I  quite  seriously  believe  that  the  men 


316          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

of  today  are  one  and  all  obsessively  heterosexual  as 
the  result  of  this  affective  displacement ;  in  order  to 
free  themselves  from  men,  they  become  the  slaves  of 
women.  This  may  be  the  explanation  of  the  "chiv- 
alry" and  the  exaggerated,  often  visibly  affected, 
adoration  of  woman  that  has  dominated  the  male 
world  since  the  middle  ages ;  it  may  also  possibly  be 
the  explanation  of  Don-Juanism,  the  obsessive  and 
yet  never  fully  satisfied  pursuit  of  continually  new 
heterosexual  adventures.  Even  if  Don  Juan  himself 
would  find  this  theory  ridiculous,  I  should  have  to 
declare  him  to  be  an  obsessional  invalid,  who  could 
never  find  satisfaction  in  the  endless  series  of  women 
(so  faithfully  drawn  by  Leporello  in  his  book)  be- 
cause these  women  are  really  only  substitutes  for 
repressed  love-objects.17 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  misunderstood:  I  find  it  nat- 
ural and  founded  in  the  psycho-physical  organisa- 
tion of  the  sexes  that  a  man  loves  a  woman  incom- 
parably better  than  his  like,  but  it  is  unnatural  that 
a  man  should  repel  other  men  and  have  to  adore 
women  with  an  obsessive  exaggeration.  What  won- 
der that  so  few  women  succeed  in  meeting  these  ex- 
aggerated demands  and  in  satisfying,  as  well  as  all 
the  other  ones,  also  the  man's  homo-erotic  needs  by 
being  his  "companion,"  without  doubt  one  of  the 
commonest  causes  of  domestic  unhappiness. 

"There   also   exists    a    Don-Juanism    of   unsatisfied   hetero- 
erotism. 


The  Nosology  of  Male  Homosexuality      317 

The  exaggeration  of  hetero-erotism  for  the  pur- 
pose of  repressing  love  towards  the  same  sex  invol- 
untarily reminds  one  of  an  epigram  of  Lessing's 
( Sinngedichte,  Buch  II,  Nr  C)  : 

"The  unjust  mob  falsely  imputed  love  of  boys  to  the 

righteous  Turan. 
To  chastise  the  lies  what  else  could  he  do  but — 

sleep  with  his  sister." 

The  reason  why  every  kind  of  affection  between 
men  is  proscribed  is  not  clear.  It  is  thinkable  that 
the  sense  of  cleanliness  which  has  been  so  specially 
reinforced  in  the  past  few  centuries,  ».  e.  the  repres- 
sion of  anal-erotism,  has  provided  the  strongest  mo- 
tive in  this  direction ;  for  homo-erotism,  even  the 
most  sublimated,  stands  in  a  more  or  less  unconscious 
associative  connection  with  paederastia,  i.  e.  an 
anal-erotic  activity. 

The  increasing  number  of  obsessional  homo-erotics 
in  modern  society  would  then  be  the  symptom  of  the 
partial  failure  of  repression  and  "return"  of  the 
repressed  material. 

In  a  brief  summary,  therefore,  the  attempt  to  ex- 
plain the  prevalence  of  object-homo-erotism  would 
run  somewhat  as  follows:  The  exaggerated  repres- 
sion of  the  homo-erotic  instinct-component  in  pres- 
ent-day society  has  resulted  in  general  in  a  rather 
obsessive  reinforcement  of  hetero-erotism  in  men.  If 
now  the  hetero-erotism  is  also  inhibited  or  strictly 


318          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

restrained,  as  is  necessarily  the  case  during  educa- 
tion, the  consequence  may  easily  be — in  the  first 
place  with  those  who  are  predisposed  to  it  for  in- 
dividual reasons — a  reverse  displacement  of  the  com- 
pulsion from  hetero-erotism  to  homo-erotism,  i.  e. 
the  development  of  a  homo-erotic  obsessional  neu- 
rosis. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   ONTOGENESIS   OF  THE   INTEREST  IN   MONEY  * 

THE  deeper  psycho-analysis  penetrates  into  the 
knowledge  of  social-psychological  productions 
(myths,  fairy-tales,  folk-lore)  the  stronger  becomes 
the  confirmation  of  the  phylogenetic  origin  of  sym- 
bols, which  stand  out  in  the  mental  life  of  every  indi- 
vidual as  a  precipitate  of  the  experiences  of  previous 
generations.  Analysis  has  still  to  perform  the  task 
of  separately  investigating  the  phylogenesis  and  on- 
togenesis of  symbolism,  and  then  establishing  their 
mutual  relation.  The  classical  formula  of  "Dai- 
mon  kai  Tyche"  in  Freud's  application  (the  co- 
operation of  heredity  and  experience  in  the  genesis 
of  individual  strivings)  will  finally  become  applied 
also  to  the  genesis  of  the  psychical  contents  of  these 
strivings,  and  this  also  brings  to  the  front  the  old 
dispute  about  "congenital  ideas,"  though  now  no 
longer  in  the  form  of  empty  speculations.  We  may 
already,  however,  anticipate  to  this  extent,  namely, 
that  for  the  production  of  a  symbol  individual  expe- 
riences are  necessary  as  well  as  the  congenital  dispo- 

1  Published  in 'the  Internat.  Zeitschr.  f.  arztl.  Psychoanalyse, 
1914. 

319 


320          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

sition,  these  providing  the  real  material  for  the  con- 
struction of  the  symbol,  while  the  congenital  basis 
preceding  experience  has  perhaps  only  the  value  of 
an  inherited,  but  not  yet  functioning  mechanism. 

I  wish  here  to  examine  the  question  of  whether,  and 
to  what  extent,  individual  experience  favours  the 
transformation  of  anal-erotic  interest  into  interest 
in  money. 

Every  psycho-analyst  is  familiar  with  the  sym- 
bolic meaning  of  money  that  was  discovered  by 
Freud,  "Wherever  the  archaic  way  of  thinking  has 
prevailed  or  still  prevails,  in  the  old  civilisations,  in 
myths,  fairy-tales,  superstition,  in  unconscious  think- 
ing, in  dreams,  and  in  neuroses,  money  has  been 
brought  into  the  closest  connection  with  filth." 

As  an  individual-psychological  phenomenon  paral- 
lel with  this  fact  Freud  asserts  that  an  intimate  as- 
sociation exists  between  the  strongly  marked  eroge- 
nicity  of  the  anal  zone  in  childhood  and  the  charac- 
ter trait  of  miserliness  that  develops  later.  In  the 
case  of  persons  who  later  on  were  especially  tidy, 
economical,  and  obstinate,  one  learns  from  the  ana- 
lytic investigation  of  their  early  childhood  that  they 
were  of  that  class  of  infants  "who  refuse  to  empty 
the  bowel  because  they  obtain  an  accessory  pleasure 
from  defaecation,"  who  even  in  the  later  years  of 
childhood  "enjoyed  holding  back  the  stools,"  and 
who  recall  "having  occupied  themselves  in  their  child- 
hood in  all  sorts  of  unseemly  ways  with  the  evacu- 


The  Ontogenesis  of  the  Interest  in  Money 

ated  material."  "The  most  extensive  connections 
seem  to  be  those  existing  between  the  apparently  so 
disparate  complexes  of  defaecation  and  interest  in 
money."  2 

Observation  of  the  behaviour  of  children  and  an- 
alytic investigation  of  neurotics  allow  us  now  to  es- 
tablish some  single  points  on  the  line  along  which 
the  idea  of  the  most  valuable  thing  that  a  man  pos- 
sesses (money)  is  developed  in  the  individual  into  a 
symbol  "of  the  most  worthless  thing,  which  a  man 
casts  aside  as  dejecta."  3 

Experience  gathered  from  these  two  sources  shews 
that  children  originally  devote  their  interest  with- 
out any  inhibition  to  the  process  of  defaecation,  and 
that  it  affords  them  pleasure  to  hold  back  their 
stools.  The  excrementa  thus  held  back  are  really  the 
first  "savings"  of  the  growing  being,  and  as  such 
remain  in  a  constant,  unconscious  inter-relationship 
with  every  bodily  activity  or  mental  striving  that  has 
anything  to  do  with  collecting,  hoarding,  and  saving. 

Faeces  are  also,  however,  one  of  the  first  toys  of 
the  child.  The  purely  auto-erotic  satisfaction  af- 
forded to  the  child  by  the  pressing  and  squeezing  of 
the  faecal  masses  and  the  play  of  the  sphincter  mus- 
cles soon  becomes — in  part,  at  least — transformed 
into  a  sort  of  object-love,  in  that  the  interest  gets 
displaced  from  the  neutral  sensations  of  certain  or- 

1  Freud.    "Charakter  und  Analerotik,"  in  his  Sammlung  kl. 
Schr.  z.  Neurosenlehre,  Bd.  II,  S.  132  et  seq. 
•  Freud.     Loc.  citi 


Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

gans  on  to  the  material  itself  that  caused  these  feel- 
ings. The  faeces  are  thus  "introjected,"  and  in  this 
stage  of  development — which  is  essentially  character- 
ised by  sharpening  of  the  sense  of  smell  and  an  in- 
creasingly adroit  use  of  the  hands,  with  at  the  same 
time  an  inability  to  walk  upright  (creeping  on  all 
fours) — they  count  as  a  valuable  toy,  from  which 
the  child  is  to  be  weaned  only  through  deterrents 
and  threats  of  punishment. 

The  child's  interest  for  dejecta  experiences  its  first 
distortion  through  the  smell  of  faeces  becoming  dis- 
agreeable, disgusting.  This  is  probably  related  to 
the  beginning  of  the  upright  gait.4  The  other  at- 
tributes of  this  material — moistness,  discolouration, 
stickiness,  etc. — do  not  for  the  time  being  offend  his 
sense  of  cleanliness.  He  still  enjoys,  therefore,  play- 
ing with  and  manipulating  moist  street-mud  when- 
ever he  has  the  chance,  liking  to  collect  it  together 
into  larger  heaps.  Such  a  heap  of  mud  is  already  in 
a  sense  a  symbol,  distinguished  from  the  real  thing 
by  its  absence  of  smell.  For  the  child,  street-mud  is, 
so  to  speak,  deodourised  dejecta. 

As  the  child's  sense  of  cleanliness  increases — with 
the  help  of  paedagogic  measures — street-mud  also 
becomes  objectionable  to  him.  Substances  which  on 
account  of  their  stickiness,  moistures,  and  colour  are 
apt  to  leave  traces  on  the  body  and  clothing  become 

4  Freud  conceives  of  the  repression  of  anal-erotism  and  of 
the  pleasure  in  smell  together  in  the  human  race  as  a  result 
of  the  upright  posture,  the  erection  from  the  earth. 


The  Ontogenesis  of  the  Interest  m  Money     323 

despised  and  avoided  as  "dirty  things."  The  symbol 
of  filth  must  therefore  undergo  a  further  distortion, 
a  dehydration.  The  child  turns  its  interest  to  sand, 
a  substance  which,  while  the  colour  of  earth,  is 
cleaner  and  dry.  The  instinctive  joy  of  children  in 
gathering  up,  massing  together,  and  shaping  sand  is 
subsequently  rationalised  and  sanctioned  by  the 
adults,  whom  it  suits  to  see  an  otherwise  unruly  child 
playing  with  sand  for  hours, — and  they  declare  this 
playing  to  be  "healthy,"  i.  e.  hygienic.5  None  the 
less  this  play-sand  also  is  nothing  other  than  a  cop- 
ro-symbol — deodourised  and  dehydrated  filth. 

Already  in  this  stage  of  development,  by  the  way, 
there  occurs  a  "return  of  the  repressed.'*  It  gives 
children  endless  pleasure  to  fill  with  water  the  holes 
they  dig  in  the  sand,  and  so  to  bring  the  material  of 
their  play  nearer  to  the  original  watery  stage.  Boys 
not  infrequently  employ  their  own  urine  for  this  irri- 
gation, as  though  they  wanted  in  this  way  to  empha- 

5  The  habit  of  euphemistically  disguising  coprophilic  tenden- 
cies as  "hygienic"  is  very  widespread.  The  fairly  harmless 
behaviour  of  stool  pedants  is  well-known,  who  devote  to  the 
regulation  of  their  bowel  activities  a  considerable  part  of 
the  interest  at  their  disposal;  such  persons,  however,  are  rather 
prone  to  fall  into  what  has  been  called  "stool-hypochondria." 
A  whole  series  of  analyses,  by  the  way,  has  convinced  me  that 
in  very  many  cases  hypochondria  is  really  a  fermentation- 
product  of  anal-erotism,  a  displacement  of  unsublimated  co- 
prophilic interests  from  their  original  objects  on  to  other  or- 
gans and  products  of  the  body  with  an  alteration  of  the 
qualifying  pleasure.  The  choice  of  the  organ  towards  which 
the  hypochondria  is  directed  is  determined  by  special  factors 
(somatic  disposition,  pronounced  erogenicity  even  in  diseased 
organs,  etc.). 


324  Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

sise  quite  clearly  the  relationship  of  the  two  mate- 
rials. Even  the  interest  for  the  specific  odour  of  ex- 
crement does  not  cease  at  once,  but  is  only  displaced 
on  to  other  odours  that  in  any  way  resemble  this. 
The  children  continue  to  shew  a  liking  for  the  smell 
of  sticky  materials  with  a  characteristic  odour,  espe- 
cially the  strongly  smelling  degenerated  product  of 
cast  off  epidermis  cells  which  collects  between  the 
toes,  nasal  secretion,  ear-wax,  and  the  dirt  of  the 
nails,  while  many  children  do  not  content  themselves 
with  the  moulding  and  sniffing  of  these  substances, 
but  also  take  them  into  the  mouth.  The  passionate 
enjoyment  of  children  in  moulding  putty  (colour, 
consistency,  smell),  tar,  and  asphalt,  is  well  known. 
I  knew  a  boy  who  had  an  intense  passion  for  the 
characteristic  smell  of  rubber  materials,  and  who 
could  sniff  for  hours  at  a  piece  of  indiarubber. 

The  smell  of  stables  and  of  illuminating  gas  great- 
ly pleases  children  at  this  age — indeed,  at  much  older 
ages  even — and  it  is  not  chance  that  popular  belief 
appreciates  places  having  these  smells  as  being 
"healthy,"  even  as  being  a  cure  for  diseases.  A  spe- 
cial sublimation  path  of  anal-erotism  branches  off 
from  the  smell  of  gas,  asphalt,  and  turpentine:  the 
fondness  for  substances  with  an  agreeable  odour,  for 
perfumes,  by  means  of  which  the  development  of  a 
reaction-formation — representation  through  the  op- 
posite— is  concluded.  People  with  whom  this  kind 
of  sublimation  occurs  often  develop  in  other  respects 


The  Ontogenesis  of  the  Interest  m  Money     325 

as  well  into  aesthetes,  and  there  can  be  no  question 
that  aesthetics  in  general  has  its  principal  root  in 
repressed  anal-erotism.8  The  aesthetic  and  playful 
interest  springing  from  this  source  not  infrequently 
has  a  share  in  the  developing  pleasure  in  painting 
and  sculpture.7 

Already  in  the  mud  and  sand  periods  of  copro- 
philic  interest  it  is  striking  how  fond  children  are  of 
fabricating  objects  out  of  this  material — so  far  as 
their  primitive  artistic  skill  allows — or,  more  cor- 
rectly, of  imitating  objects  the  possession  of  which 
has  a  special  value  for  them.  They  make  out  of  them 
different  articles  of  diet,  cakes,  tarts,  sweetmeats, 
etc.  The  reinforcement  of  purely  egoistic  instincts 
by  coprophilia  begins  here. 

Progress  in  the  sense  of  cleanliness  then  gradually 
makes  even  sand  unacceptable  to  the  child,  and  the 
infantile  stone  age  begins :  the  collecting  of  pebbles, 
as  prettily  shaped  and  coloured  as  possible,  in  which 
a  higher  stage  in  the  development  of  replacement- 
formation  is  attained.  The  attributes  of  evil  odour, 
moisture,  and  softness  are  represented  by  those  of 
absence  of  odour,  dryness,  and  now  also  hardness. 
We  are  reminded  of  the  real  origin  of  this  hobby  by 
the  circumstance  that  stones — just  as  mud  and  sand 

'  (See  on  this  matter  a  monograph  of  mine  in  the  Jahrbuch, 
Bd.  VI.  Transl.) 

7 1  have  already  in  another  connection  pointed  out  the  prob- 
able part  played  by  the  childish  interest  in  flatus  in  later  fond- 
ness for  music.  See  Ch.  IV. 


326          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

— are  gathered  and  collected  from  the  earth.  The 
capitalistic  significance  of  stones  is  already  quite 
considerable.  (Children  are  "stone-rich"15  in  the 
narrow  sense  of  the  word.) 

After  stones  comes  the  turn  of  artificial  products, 
and  with  these  the  detachment  of  the  interest  from 
the  earth  is  complete.  Glass  marbles,  buttons,9  fruit 
pips,  are  eagerly  collected — this  time  no  longer  only 
for  the  sake  of  their  intrinsic  value,  but  as  measures 
of  value,  so  to  speak  as  primitive  coins,  converting 
the  previous  barter  exchange  of  children  into  an  en- 
thusiastic money  exchange.  The  character  of  capi- 
talism, however,  not  purely  practical  and  utilitarian, 
but  libidinous  and  irrational,  is  betrayed  in  this 
stage  also:  the  child  decidedly  enjoys  the  collecting 
in  itself.10 

It  only  needs  one  more  step  for  the  identification 
of  faeces  with  gold  to  be  complete.  Soon  even  stones 
begin  to  wound  the  child's  feeling  of  cleanliness — he 

•  (A  German  idiom.    Transl.) 

•Cp.  L-pu  Andreas-Salom6:  "Vom  friihen  Gottesdienst."  Im- 
ago. II.  1913. 

10  The  German  word  "Besitz"  (=  possession)  shews,  by  the 
way,  that  man  tries  even  in  his  speech  to  represent  by  the  idea 
of  "sitting  on  it"  that  which  is  valuable  to  him,  which  belongs 
to  him.  Rationalists  evidently  content  themselves  with  the  ex- 
planation of  this  simile  to  the  effect  that  the  sitting  on  is 
meant  to  express  a  concealing,  protecting  and  guarding  of  the 
valued  object.  The  fact,  however,  that  it  is  the  buttocks  and 
not  the  hand — which  would  be  more  natural  with  men — that  is 
used  to  represent  protection  and  defence  speaks  rather  in 
favour  of  the  word  "Besitz"  being  a  copro-symbol.  The  final 
decision  on  the  point  must  be  reserved  for  a  philologist  who  has 
had  a  psycho-analytic  training. 


The  Ontogenesis  of  the  Interest  in  Money    387 

longs  for  something  purer — and  this  is  offered  to  him 
in  the  shining  pieces  of  money,  the  high  appreciation 
of  which  is  naturally  also  in  part  due  to  the  respect 
in  which  they  are  held  by  adults,  as  well  as  to  the 
seductive  possibilities  of  obtaining  through  them 
everything  that  the  child's  heart  can  desire.  Orig- 
inally, however,  it  is  not  these  purely  practical  con- 
siderations that  are  operative,  enjoyment  in  the 
playful  collecting,  heaping  up,  and  gazing  at  the 
shining  metal  pieces  being  the  chief  thing,  so  that 
they  are  treasured  even  less  for  their  economic  value 
than  for  their  own  sake  as  pleasure-giving  objects. 
The  eye  takes  pleasure  at  the  sight  of  their  lustre 
and  colour,  the  ear  at  their  metallic  clink,  the  sense 
of  touch  at  play  with  the  round  smooth  discs,  only 
the  sense  of  smell  comes  away  empty,  and  the  sense 
of  taste  also  has  to  be  satisfied  with  the  weak,  but 
peculiar  taste  of  the  coins.  With  this  the  develop- 
ment of  the  money  symbol  is  in  its  main  outlines 
complete.  Pleasure  in  the  intestinal  contents  be- 
comes enjoyment  of  money,  which,  however,  after 
what  has  been  said  is  seen  to  be  nothing  other  than 
odourless,  dehydrated  filth  that  has  been  made  to 
shine.  Pecwvia  'non  olet. 

In  correspondence  with  the  development  of  the  or- 
gan of  thought  that  in  the  meanwhile  has  been  pro- 
ceeding in  the  direction  of  logicality,  the  adult's  sym- 
bolic interest  in  money  gets  extended  not  only  to  ob- 
jects with  similar  physical  attributes,  but  to  all  sorts 


328          Contributions  to  Psycho-Analysis 

of  things  that  in  any  way  signify  value  or  possession 
(paper  money,  shares,  bankbook,  etc.).  But  what- 
ever form  may  be  assumed  by  money,  the  enjoyment 
at  possessing  it  has  its  deepest  and  amplest  source 
in  coprophilia.  Every  sociologist  and  national  econ- 
omist who  examines  the  facts  without  prejudice  has 
to  reckon  with  this  irrational  element.  Social  prob- 
lems can  be  solved  only  by  discovering  the  real  psy- 
chology of  human  beings;  speculations  about  eco- 
nomic conditions  alone  will  never  reach  the  goal. 

A  part  of  anal-erotism  is  not  sublimated  at  all,  but 
remains  in  its  original  form.11  Even  the  most  culti- 
vated normal  being  displays  an  interest  in  his  evacu- 
ation functions  which  stands  in  a  curious  contradic- 
tion to  the  abhorrence  and  disgust  that  he  manifests 
when  he  sees  or  hears  about  anything  of  the  kind 
in  regard  to  other  people.  Foreign  people  and  races, 
as  is  well  known,  cannot  "riechen"  12  each  other.  In 

u  The  sum  of  anal-erotism  present  in  the  constitution  is  thus 
shared  in  adults  among  the  most  diverse  psychical  structures. 
Out  of  it  develop:  1.  The  anal  character  traits  in  Freud's 
sense.  2.  Contributions  to  aesthetics  and  to  cultural  inter- 
ests. 3.  To  hypochondria.  4.  The  rest  remains  unsublimated. 
From  the  different  proportion  of  the  sublimated  and  the  origi- 
nal parts,  from  the  preference  for  this  or  that  form  of  sub- 
limation, the  most  variegated  character  types  arise,  which  must 
naturally  have  their  special  conditional  factors.  Anal  char- 
acteristics are  specially  suited  for  rapid  characterological  ori- 
entation concerning  an  individual,  indeed  concerning  whole 
races.  The  anal  character,  with  his  cleanliness,  love  for  order, 
defiance,  and  miserliness,  sharply  deviates  from  the  pronounced 
anal-erotic,  who  is  tolerant  on  the  matter  of  dirt,  extravagant, 
and  easy-going. 

"  (A  German  idiom,  meaning  "cannot  stand."  "Riechen" 
literally  means  to  smell.  Transl.) 


The  Ontogenesis  of  the  Interest  in  Money     829 

addition  to  the  retention  of  the  original  form,  how- 
ever, there  also  exists  a  "return"  of  what  is  actually 
concealed  behind  the  money  symbol.  The  intestinal 
disorders,  first  observed  by  Freud,  that  follow  on  a 
wounding  of  the  money  complex  are  examples  of 
this.13  A  further  instance  is  the  curious  fact,  which 
I  have  noticed  in  countless  cases,  that  people  are  eco- 
nomical as  regards  the  changing  of  under-linen  in  a 
way  quite  out  of  proportion  to  their  standard  of  liv- 
ing in  other  respects.  Meanness  finally,  therefore, 
makes  use  of  the  anal  character  in  order  to  gain  once 
more  a  piece  of  anal-erotism  (tolerance  of  dirt).  The 
following  is  a  still  more  striking  example :  A  patient 
could  not  recall  any  kind  of  coprophilic  manipula- 
tions, but  soon  after  related  without  being  asked  that 
he  took  a  special  pleasure  in  brightly  shining  copper 
coins,  and  had  invented  an  original  procedure  for 
making  them  shine ;  he  swallowed  the  piece  of  money, 
and  then  searched  his  faeces  until  he  found  the  piece 
of  money,  which  during  its  passage  through  the  ali- 
mentary canal  had  become  beautifully  shining.14 
Here  the  pleasure  in  the  clean  object  became  a  cover 

"See  Chapter  VII.  P.  176.  "Temporary  rectal  troubles," 
etc. 

"  The  case  reminds  one  of  the  coprophilic  joke  in  which  the 
doctor  who  had  succeeded  in  expelling  by  means  of  a  purge 
a  piece  of  money  that  a  child  had  swallowed  was  told  he  could 
keep  the  money  as  his  fee.  As  to  the  identification  of  money 
and  faeces  see  also  the  fairy-tale  of  "Eslein  streck  dich."  The 
word  "Losung"  (=  deliverance)  means  proceeds  of  a  sale  (in 
business),  but  in  hunting  speech  it  means  the  faeces  of  wild 
animals. 


330          Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis 

for  satisfaction  of  the  most  primitive  anal-erotism. 
The  curious  thing  is  that  the  patient  was  able  to  de- 
ceive himself  as  to  the  real  significance  of  his  trans- 
parent behaviour. 

Apart  from  striking  examples  of  this  sort,  the 
erotic  enjoyment  of  heaping  in  and  gathering  up  gold 
and  other  money  pieces,  the  pleasurable  "wallowing 
in  money,"  can  be  observed  countless  times  in  daily 
life.  Many  people  are  ready  enough  to  sign  docu- 
ments that  bind  them  to  pay  large  sums,  and  can 
easily  expend  large  amounts  in  paper  money,  but  are 
striking  tardy  in  giving  out  gold  coins  or  even  the 
smallest  copper  coins.  The  coins  seem  to  "stick"  to 
their  fingers.  (Cp.  also  the  expression  "current 
capital,"  and  the  reverse  of  this,  "argent  sec,"  which 
is  used  in  the  Pranche-Comte. )  15 

The  ontogenetic  path  of  development  of  interest  in 
money,  as  here  sketched,  while  shewing  individual 
differences  dependent  on  the  conditions  of  life,  is 
nevertheless  on  the  whole  among  civilised  people  to  be 
regarded  as  a  psychical  process  which  seeks  realisa- 
tion under  the  most  diverse  circumstances,  in  one  way 
or  another.  It  thus  seems  natural  to  regard  this  de- 
velopmental tendency  as  a  racial  attribute,  and  to 
suppose  that  the  biogenetic  ground  principle  is  also 
valid  for  the  formation  of  the  money  symbol.  It  is 
to  be  expected  that  phylogenetic  and  historical  conv 

u  (To    be    "4    sec"    is    French    vernacular    for    "hard    up.' 
TransL) 


The  Ontogenesis  of  the  Interest  in  Money     331 

parison  of  the  path  of  individual  development  here 
described  will  shew  a  parallelism  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  money  symbol  in  the  human  race  in  gen- 
eral. Perhaps  the  coloured  stones  of  primitive  men 
which  have  been  found  in  cave  excavations  will  then 
be  capable  of  interpretation ;  observations  concern- 
ing the  anal-erotism  of  savages  (the  primitive  men 
of  today,  who  in  many  cases  still  live  in  the  stage  of 
barter  exchange  and  of  pebble  or  shell  money)  should 
considerably  further  this  investigation  of  the  history 
of  civilisation. 

After  what  has  been  communicated,  however,  it  is 
already  not  improbable  that  the  capitalistic  interest, 
increasing  in  correlation  with  development,  stands 
not  only  at  the  disposal  of  practical,  egoistic  aims — 
of  the  reality-principle,  therefore — but  also  that  the 
delight  in  gold  and  in  the  possession  of  money  repre- 
sents the  symbolic  replacement  of,  and  the  reaction^ 
formation  to,  repressed  anal-erotism,  i.  e.,  that  it 
also  satisfies  the  pleasure-principle. 

The  capitalistic  instinct  thus  contains,  according 
to  our  conception,  an  egoistic  and  an  anal-erotic 
component. 


INDEX 


Abraham,  47,  50,  61,  155,  313 
Abreaction,  25,  29,  224 
Abstinence,  14,  38,  186 
Adler,   148,  231 
Aetiological  claims,  37,  39,  50, 

52 
Affect,   39,   50,   256,   272,   277, 

305,  314,  315 

Alcohol,  130,  158,  159,  161-164 
Ambi-sexual,  184,  296,  302 
Ambition,  59,   117,  207,  208 
Ambivalency,  246,  247,  260 
Amnesia,  77,  177 
Amphi-erotism,  296,  303,  312, 

314 

Anaesthesia,  42,  75,  147 
Anal,  208,  209,  320,  329 
Anal-erotism,  16,  108,  134, 

307,    310,    317,    320,    322, 

324,  328-331 
Andreas-Salome,  326 
Animism,  227,  228,  275 
Antipathy,  54,  64,  65,  82,  86 
Anxiety,  30,  74,  82,   113,  115, 

209,  220,  272,  306 
Anxiety  neurosis,  14,  34,  107, 

130 
Anxiety  hysteria,   72,   74,   90, 

163 

Aprosexia,    186 
Art,  116,  214 
Association,  19,  20,  25,  44,  51, 

98-100,  114,  116,  117,  119, 

143,    145,    197,    202,    205, 

211,   229,   317.      See   also: 

Free  Association. 
Auto-erotism,   47,   49,   64,   77, 


155,     208,     209,     233-236, 

294,  298,  321. 
Automatism,  37,  76 
Auto-suggestion,  59,  71,  82-85 
Autosymbolic  phenomena,  217 
Aversion,  43 

Beaurain,  276 
Bernheim,  58,  67 
Bisexuality,  21,  184,  262,  296 
Bjerre,  294 
Bleuler,  218 
Brev*r,  29 

Castration,  34,  185,  186,  192, 
200,  243,  247,  250,  264, 
266,  270 

Catalepsy,  69 

Catalysis,  39 

Catatonia,  285,  291,  §94 

Catharsis,  29 

Censor,  93,  103-105,  109,  111, 
113,  117,  127-129,  136,  210 

Character,  37,  44,  47,  141,  145, 
148,  150,  202,  206,  207, 
237 

Charcot,  58,  83 

Childhood,  23,  26,  28,  31-33, 
41,  50,  60,  63,  76,  79-81, 
90,  104,  106-108,  110,  111, 
147,  179,  185,  197,  208, 
216-219,  231,  256,  273-275, 
296,  297,  307,  315,  320 

Childish  memories:  See  In- 
fantile memories. 

Claustrophobia,  51 

Cleanliness,  322,  325,  328 


333 


334 


Index 


Cohabitation:  See  Coitus. 

Coitus,  13-16,  19,  23,  29,  89, 
108,  135,  146,  158-161,  166, 
168,  180,  187-191,  250,  263, 
266,  269,  271,  274,  301,  308 

Complexes,  12,  25,  29,  36,  39, 

42,  43,  45,  51,  52,  56,  57, 
59,  60,  62,  64,  67,  72,  80, 
83,  86,  88,  91,  96,  112,  118, 
125,  128,  129,  135,  143-148, 
177,    198,    212,    235,    258, 
265,    267,    271     ,293,    321, 
329.      See    also:    Father- 
complex,   mother-complex, 
GEdipus-complex. 

Compulsion,  25,  77,  237,  306, 
318 

Compulsion  neurosis:  See  Ob- 
sessional neurosis. 

Condensation,  100,  113,  115, 
118,  126,  266,  276 

Congenital,  27,  28,  148,  319, 
320 

Conscience,  23,   122,   177,  301 

Consciousness,    16-19,    21,    35, 

43,  48,    53,    65,    66,    112, 
113,    140,    147,    152,    175, 
195,    199,    210,    212,    277, 
301    311 

Conversion,  154,  185,  200,  235 
Coprolalia,  150 
Coprophemia,  150 
Coprophilia,  38,  66,  143,  150, 

305,    307,    323,    325,    328, 

329 

Cover-memory,  22,  76 
Cowardice,  15,  17,  19,  20,  200 
Cruelty,  19,  78,  79,  107,  119, 

245,  246,  248,  249,  307 
Curiosity,    74,    116,    122,    144, 

176,  250,  273,  275 

Day  dreams,  18,  43,  102 
Defaecation,   320,  321 
Delusions    of    grandeur:    See 

Grandiose  delusions. 
Delusions  of  persecution,  48, 


157,  170,  175,  176,  179, 
183,  286,  288,  290,  293,  294 

Dementia  praecox,  47,  130, 
154,  163,  179,  234,  285,  294 

Depression,  30 

Determinism,  100,  195,  232, 
258 

Disgust,  65,  144,  151,  167 

Displacement,  39,  49,  56,  60, 
118,  120,  154,  202,  210, 
211,  264,  271,  272-  275, 
276,  316,  318,  323 

Disposition,  209 

Docility,   308 

Dreams,  19,  21,  42,  71,  94-119, 
121,  123-131,  191,  192, 
196,  201,  213,  245,  246, 
255,  261-264,  269,  272, 
280,  320 

Von  Ehrenfels,  22 
Ejaculatio  praecox,  13,  191 
Emotion,  35,  65,  74,  109,  186, 

195 

Environment,  24,  50,  66 
Erection,  13,  14,  23,  200,  273, 

285,  295 
Erogenous   zone,   15,  90,    108, 

189,  279,  320 
Erotomania,  288 
Excitation,  104,  107-110,  188- 

191,  195,  207 
Exhibitionism,    16,    105,    106, 

108,  167,  172,  177,  313 
Expression  displacement,  209- 

212 

Faeces,  321,  326,  329 
Father-complex,  70,  75,  78-80 
Ferenczi,  12,  34,  36,  164,  231, 

233,    270,    274,    277,    278, 

325,  328 

Fetishism,  16,  22 
Fixation,   25,   26,   31,   33,   58, 

61,  87,  179,  205,  207,  208, 

211,    216,    224,    234,    236, 

258,  294,  304,  307 
Flatus,  134,  143 


Index 


335 


Fliess,  184,  190,  296 
Fore-pleasure,  188,  190 
Forgetting,    16,    72,    100,    127, 

149 
Free   association,   22,  99,   110, 

129,  193,  194,  202,  204 
Freud,  11,  13-42,  45-47,  49, 
52-57,  59-66,  71-73,  76,  80, 
85,  86,  90-92,  96-99,  101- 
103,  106-115,  117,  124,  125, 
128-132,  136-141,  144,  150, 
154-156,  184,  187,  191,  200, 
202,  207,  211,  213-217, 
220-225,  230-237,  248,  254- 
257,  259,  264,  275,  276, 
292,  294,  296,  297,  301, 
306,  307,  313,  319-322,  329 
Functional  symbolism,  261,  266 


Gesture,  42,  151,  217,  225, 
226,  228,  229,  234,  235, 
241 

Grandiose  delusions,  155,  165, 
217,  270,  286,  288 

Gross,  Otto,  39 


Hallucinations,  21,  44,  96,  137- 
139,  141,  145,  149,  156, 
189,  204,  205,  214,  221- 
223,  291 

Hate,  19,  21,  36,  39,  41,  42, 
44,  48,  49,  63,  64,  78,  175, 
182,  246,  247,  258-260,  287, 
297,  306 

Heredity,  28,  319 

Hirschfield,  303 

Homo-erotism,  253,  318 

Homosexuality,  20,  43,  65,  75, 
91,  134,  143,  156,  157,  161, 
162,  167,  169,  170,  175, 
176,  179,  182,  184,  200,  209, 
289-292,  294,  296-300,  306, 
311,  316 

Hostility:  See  Hate. 

Hyperaesthesia,  14,  188 


Hypnagogic,  21 

Hypnotism,  54,  55,  58-60,  63, 
64,  67-77,  80,  83-88,  91, 
92,  305 

Hypochondria,  14,  30,  82,  270, 
271,  282-285,  323,  328 

Hysteria,  35,  36,  46,  54,  66, 
73,  75,  83,  86,  108,  130, 
133,  143,  177,  185,  194, 
196,  210,  211,  234,  235 


Ibsen,  20,  21 

Ideational  identity,  223 

Identification,  37,  52,  74,  77, 
117,  176,  191,  275-277, 
280,  326 

Idiosyncrasy,  38,  66 

Ignotus,  18 

Imitation,  225,  229,  241,  245 

Impotence,  12,  13,  15,  22,  26, 
27,  31-34,  51,  61,  114,  123, 
161 

Incest,  31,  33,  34,  61,  80,  87, 
107,  136,  148,  185,  186, 
259,  293,  294. 

Infantile,  15,  19,  20,  23,  25-29, 
31,  32,  65,  70,  71,  73,  82, 
84,  86-89,  91,  93,  107,  108, 
111,  136,  143-146,  151-153, 
175,  176,  185,  199,  200, 
206,  207,  211,  224,  257, 

258,  274,    277,    305,    308, 
325 

Infantile  memories,  33,  70,  84, 

90,  101,  108,  110 
Inferiority,  28,  146,  231 
Inhibition,   33,   114,   125,    133, 

136,    144,    147,    149,    201, 

235,  261,  317 
Interpretation,    88,   95-97,    99, 

101,     102,     114-117,     121, 

124-126,  129,  161,  197,  248, 

259,  262-267,  270,  274,  294, 
331 

Intra-uterine,  83,  218-222,  232, 
238 


Index 


Introjection,  47,  49-53,  55,  57, 

226,  322 
Inversion,  299-306,  311,  313 

Jealousy,  44,  65,  74,  80,   159- 

166,  168 
Jokes,  115,  137,  141,  151.     See 

also:  Wit. 

Jones,  Ernest,  93,  307,  325 
Jung,   13,   47,   51,   52,   61,   78, 

82,  83,  87,  177,  278 

Kartch-Haack,  299 
Keller,  304 

Kleinpaul,  49,  151,  229 
Kleptomania,  39 

Latency  period,   144-149,   233, 

236 
Latent  dream  content,  99,  100, 

109,  113,  136 
Lesring,    317 

Maeder,  155,  156 

Manifest  dream  content,  99, 
113,  118,  120 

Masochism,  16,  75,  81,  108,  271 

Masturbation,  13,  23,  50,  73, 
122,  168,  185,  186,  188, 
192,  198,  208.  See  also: 
Onanism. 

Megalomania,  117,  219,  231, 
285.  See  also:  Omnipo- 
tence. 

Memories,  16,  75,  90,  100,  134, 
137,  149,  196,  204,  242. 
See  also:  Infantile  mem- 
ories. 

Memory  images,  22,  118,  120, 
137,  139 

Memory  traces,  15,  32,  138, 
219",  255,  303 

Mental  conflict,  32,  56.  See 
also:  Psychical  conflict. 

Mereschkovszky,    78 

Micturition:  See  Urine. 

Miserliness,  320,  328 


Money,   45,   319-321,   326,   331 
Mother-complex,  75 
Mouth-eroti jin :  See  Oral  erot- 
ism. 
Muthmann.  12 

Naecke,  297 

Narcissism,  167,  205,  233,  234, 
289,  297,  298,  301,  305. 
See  also:  Megalomania. 

Negativism,  80,  87,  291 

Neurasthenia,  34,  130,  186-191 

Neurosis,  23,  32,  35,  36,  41, 
45-47,  51,  77,  82-85,  98, 
111,  122,  130,  154,  184, 
186,  192,  212,  213,  216, 
231,  234,  235  255,  303,  307, 
312,  313,  317,  318 

Nietzsche,  70 

Nuclear  complex,  136,  258, 
265 

Nymphomania,  170 

Obedience,  32,  71,  77,  80,  81,  93 
Object-erotism,  234 
Object-love,  49,  65,  67,  74,  77, 

185,    208,    234,    298,    300, 

302,  306,  315,  321 
Obscene,  105,  132-138,  14O-145, 

149-153,  160 
Obsession,    25,    99,    192,    202, 

203,  209,  215,  216,  306 
Obsessional,  50,  130,  202,  215, 

216,    231,    274,    306,    307, 

310-317,  318 
Obsessional   neurosis,  46,   185, 

218,    234,    235,    303,    306, 

312,    318 
Obsessive,  17,  25,  54,  150,  152, 

271,  306,  316 
Odour:  See  Smell. 
CEdipus    complex,   26,   41,   91, 

136,    235,    258,    259,    297, 

307,  310 
Omnipotence,  77,  215-219,  228, 

225,  227-235,  238,  231,  371. 

See  also:  Megalomania. 


Index 


337 


Onanism,  32,  185,  192,  208, 
209,  250,  251,  271,  272. 
See  also:  Masturbation. 

Ontozenesis,  48,  138,  238,  276, 
277,  319,  330 

Oral  erotism,  16,  108,  189 

Over-determined,  197 

Paederastia,  291,  310,  317 

Paraesthesia,  14,  19,  34,  186, 
198,  284 

Paralysis,  75,  84,  130,  195, 
196,  200 

Paranoia,  47,  65,  130,  154-157, 
159,  162,  167,  170,  175, 
177,  179,  183,  184,  233, 
234,  282,  285,  289-294,  297 

Paraphrenia,  234,  282,  285, 
292,  298.  See  also:  De- 
mentia praecox. 

Parent,  40,  42,  60-65,  67,  69, 
77,  81-84,  87,  91,  93,  102, 
116,  135,  136,  143,  151, 

265,  266,    273,    274,    276, 
281,  307,  308,  310 

Pathogenesis,  28,  129,  157 
Pavor  nocturnus,  107,  245 
Perception,  138,  140,  175,  206, 
217,    230,    256,    258,    272, 
284 

Perceptual   identity,   138,   223 
Persecution:  See  Delusions  of 

persecution. 
Perseveration,  237 
Perversions,  107,  108,  132,  144, 
150,    178,    180,    181,    298, 
299    313 

Phantasy,  14,  16,  18-20,  23, 
26,  33-36,  40,  41,  43,  44, 
47,  52,  73,  82,  83,  90,  92, 
118,  122,  144,  146,  148, 
175-178,  185,  187-189,  191, 
192,  196,  198-200,  204, 
205,  211,  213,  217,  232, 
238,  245,  251,  255,  256,  261, 

266,  269-271.  274,  288,  291, 
307-310 


Phylogenesis,  236,  238,  277 
Pleasure    principle,    213,    218, 

223,    232,    233,    255,    262, 

269,  331 

Preconscious,  31,  64 
Predisposition,  28,  33,  85 
Presentation,  42,  121,  124,  125, 

131,   239 
Projection,  48,  49,  92,  154,  175, 

177,    183,    216,    227,    232, 

233,    259 

Prophylactic,  29,  34 
Psychical  conflict,  12,  96.    See 

also:  Mental  conflict. 
Psychogenesis,  214 
Psychoneurosis,  11,  14,  16,  20, 

24,   32,   34,   46,   52,   54-57, 

60,   61,   76,   83-85,   97,   99, 

104,    128,    130,    152,    163, 

186,  187,  282,  313 
Psychopathology,  49,  200 
Psycho-sexual,   16,  21,  24,  25, 

27,  29,  31-34,  46,  61 
Puberty,   24,   27-30,   122,    135, 

146.  149,  272,  308 


Rank,  Otto,  191,  264-266,  278 

Rationalism,  293,  323 

Reaction-formation,  36,  51, 
53,  66,  88,  148,  231,  247, 
251,  310,  315,  324,  331 

Reality  principle,  218,  255, 
261,  262,  269,  331 

Reflex-arc,  15 

Regression,  137,  140,  145,  153, 
205-207,  209,  224,  225,  234- 
237 

Reminiscence,  70,  71.  See  also: 
Memories. 

Representation,  83,  138,  148, 
195,  205,  213,  223,  228, 
229,  262,  267,  276,  277 

Repression,  16,  24,  33,  40,  56, 
90,  100,  107,  134,  143,  148, 
203,  204,  210-213,  217,  235- 
237,  248,  255,  258,  259, 


338 


Index 


262,  272,  275,  280,  296, 
302,  313,  314,  317,  322. 

Resistences,  57,  62,  63,  87,  133, 
134,  256 

Respect,  26,  63,  65,  72,  135 

Reversals  309 

Riklin,  238 

Sachs,  Hang,  227,  278 
Sadger,  61,  179,  297,  307 
Sadism,  16,  108,  307 
Schopenhauer,  253,  262,  269 
Sexual  hunger,  25,  39,  45,  46, 
48,  57,  61,  64,  66,  73,  78, 
87,  156,  184,  187-190,  212, 
235,    243,    266,    289,    296, 
302,  303,  308,  315 
Sexual  intercourse:  See  Coitus. 
Shame,  31,  100,  133,  134,  144, 

151,    271 
Silbertr,    207,    217,    261,    266, 

277 
Smell,  79,   143,   160,  205,  305, 

322,  324,  325,  327 
Somatic,  194,  195,  263 
Somnambulism,  76 
Sperber,  229 
Steiner,  13,  25 
Stekel,  13,  25,  39,  40 
Stimulation,  84 
Sublimation,   66,   70,    73,    162, 

163,  169,  176,  182,  184, 
206-209,  245,  305,  314,  315, 

323,  324,  328 

Subsequentness,  20,  76,  310 
Substitution,  45,  46,  154,  185, 

307    310 

Suggestion,  31,  34,  54,  58-60, 
62,  64,  67-69,  71,  75,  77, 
81,  83-86,  88,  90-93,  154, 
181,  305 

Symbol,  53,  96,  99,  104,  108, 
114,  124,  179,  192,  202, 
264,  266,  272-278,  280,  281, 
319,  321-323,  326,  327,  329, 
330  331 

Symbolism,    37,    108,    122-124, 


191,    192,    229,    253,    381, 

266,  270,  273-275,  278,  280, 

319 
Sympathy,  21,  43,  62,  65,  66, 

73,  86 

Symptom-complex,  14,  88 
Symptom-formation,   111,  197, 

198,  201,  211,  212,  235 

Transference,  35-42,  45,  47, 
49,  50,  51,  55,  58,  63,  65, 
67,  72-74,  79,  80,  85,  87, 
89,  154,  161,  168,  193,  198, 
208,  211,  219,  247,  287, 
309 

Transference-improvement, 
287 

Trauma,   12,  33 

Traumatophilia,  305 

Typical   dreams,   106 

Unconscious,  The,  18,  22,  31, 
36,  37,  40-43,  53,  55,  58, 
61,  62,  65,  71,  72,  82,  86, 
97,  107,  129,  138,  227,  262, 
265,  276,  278 

Unconscious  wishes,  17,  27, 
32,  47,  65,  104,  232 

Unpleasantness  principle,  5(5, 
64,  65,  255 

Urethral,  108,  208,  209 

Urine,  20,  110,  206,  207,  279, 
323 

Urning,  305 

Voyeur,  16,  150 

Wagner,  49 

Wish-fulfilment,    18,    101-103, 

108,    109,    112,    113,    206, 

216,  222-224 
Wit,  42,  71,  115,  124,  140,  255. 

See  also:  Jokes. 
Womb:   See   Tntra-uterine. 
Word-association,  177 

Yawning,  209,  210 

Zone:  See  Erogenous  zone. 


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